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Our Military History 



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Our Military History 

Its Fads and Fallacies 



By 

Leonard Wood 

Major General, U. S. Army 




Chicago 
The Reilly 8C Britton Co 






Copyright, 1916 

By 

The Reilly & Britton Co. 



Our MilitaryHj^tory 

m IM9I6 

©GI.A431016 



FOREWORD 

Panic patriotism appears from time 
to time when the clouds of possible 
trouble loom up heavier than usual. 
There is much discussion, some fever- 
ish activity, but little accomplishment. 

Adequate national preparedness on 
sound lines will be secured only when 
there is a general appreciation of its 
vital importance for defense and of the 
further fact that it can not be impro- 
vised or done in a hurry. It includes 
both moral and material organization. 

Military preparedness, which in- 
cludes preparation on land and sea, 
should go hand and hand with a 
nation's policy. Our policy is not one 
of aggression, but one which looks only 



Foreword 

to a secure defense. Consequently, the 
arrangements for our military estab- 
lishment should be limited to the needs 
of a secure and certain national defense 
against any force which may be 
brought against us. 

A brief review of our past military 
policy, its shortcomings and cost, may 
aid in establishing an appreciation of 
our needs. 



CONTENTS 

I The Cost of Unprepared- 

ness 9 

II The Struggle for Peace. 31 

III Past National Policy. ... 55 

TV Lessons of the Revolution 87 

V Seventy Years of Ineffi- 
ciency 122 

VI The Price of Unprepared- 

ness in the Sixties. ... 149 

VII The Value of Prepared- 
ness 168 

VIII What We Should Do... 193 

IX Constructive Work of the 

Army 227 

Appendix 228 

The Australian System 228 

The Swiss System 236 



Our Military History 



chapter i 
The Cost of Unpreparedness 

"Our culture must, therefore, not | 
omit the arming of the man." ! 

— Emerson. 

Wars and rumors of wars world- 
wide in extent have aroused to an 
unusual degree the interest of the 
American people in their own military 
problems, especially the question of 
national defense, including, as it must, 
the organization of national resources. 

There is a failure on the part of 
our people to appreciate the defects of 
our military organization in the past, 

9 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

and a tendency growing out of this 
state of misinformation as to what has 
been really done, to continue to place 
too much dependence upon a military 
policy found gravely defective, even 
to the extent of endangering success 
and in most instances making it unnec- 
essarily costly. 

There is still a general lack of 
appreciation of the fact that military 
operations, in order to be effective, 
must be conducted by highly trained, 
well organized and equipped forces, and 
that such training, organization and 
equipment require much time and must 
be accompanied by an organization of 
industrial resources, all in complete 
readiness in advance of the day of 
trouble. 

There is a general tendency to con- 
sider that our geographical position 

10 



COST OF UNPREPAREDNESS 

renders us secure from invasion and 
that our numbers, resources and wealth 
would be a secure defense if we should 
be attacked. These very dangerous 
misconceptions are largely due to a 
failure on the part of our educational 
institutions, public and private, to teach 
properly our military history, and espe- 
cially to their failure to present that 
side of it which relates to the methods 
employed in the conduct of our mili- 
tary establishment in the past. 

With few exceptions, the teaching of 
the military history of our country has 
not been such as to give the people a 
correct idea of our military achieve- 
ments or of the conditions under which 
military operations have been con- 
ducted. As a rule, students leave 
school, and even college, not only with 
superficial knowledge, but often with 

11 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

entirely incorrect ideas concerning our 
achievements in war. They know Httle 
or nothing of the system under which 
we have raised and maintained our 
armies, still less of the unnecessary cost 
in life and treasure which has charac- 
terized the conduct of our wars, or the 
reasons therefor. Only too often the 
real facts of our failures are overlooked 
and the account of our successes exag- 
gerated. The schools teach the dates 
of battles and the names of the com- 
manding generals, but nothing of the 
organization which determined the effi- 
ciency of military operations in our 
various wars. 

The natural result has been an 
unwarranted degree of confidence, a 
confidence which has grown into a 
belief that we always have been easily 
successful in war; that, in the language 

12 



COST OF UNPREPAREDNESS 

of the Fourth of July orator, we can 
defeat a world in arms. The effect of 
this lack of sound information is not 
limited by any means to those in pri- 
vate life, but too often characterizes 
the remarks of those in places of trust 
and responsibility who should know 
better. The result of this general 
failure to teach correctly our military 
history, and of the resulting mis- 
information concerning it, is seen in 
the general lack of interest in our 
military situation, ignorance of the 
most elementary facts concerning our 
military establishment, its organization, 
strength, equipment and needs. 

There is a lack of information also 
as to the nation's resources in men and 
material, both mechanical and chemi- 
cal. Americans are unaware that this 
country is depending upon sea control 

13 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

for many of these, and are uninformed 
as to the time required to make arms 
and ammunition. Intelligent public 
interest in adequate preparedness has 
been so long dormant, and ignorance 
of the need of it is so general, that our 
people do not appreciate how many 
links in our industrial and chemical 
chain are wanting, how many breaks 
are tied together with string, how 
helpless the nation would be in certain 
lines of endeavor without these missing 
necessities. 

They are cheerfully confident that 
an untrained American is as effective 
in war as a highly trained and equally 
well educated foreigner of equal phys- 
ical strength and intelligence. There 
is a lack of appreciation of the fact 
that willingness does not mean fitness 
or ability. This condition of mind is 

14 



COST OF UNPREPAREDNESS 

undoubtedly ascribable to the fact that 
we have been actively engaged in mat- 
ters in no way relating to our military 
establishment, an immense work has 
been accomplished in developing our 
resources. We are entitled to credit 
for what we have done, and we can 
justly take much pride in it. We now 
need pitiless pubhcity as to the defects 
in our military system, organization 
and resources, which have characterized 
them and endangered our safety in all 
our past wars. 

The general lack of information and 
interest in military matters is the result 
of various causes; but first and fore- 
most is the want of sound teaching of 
our national history, especially its mili- 
tary side, and an unwarranted sense 
of security because of our assumed 
inaccessibility. It is also due in a 

15 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

measure to our rapid expansion, accom- 
panied by the development of our vast 
resources. We have unconsciously- 
come to look upon the size, wealth and 
population of our country as sufficient 
protection, forgetting that without the 
organization of our resources and the 
training of our men these will be of 
little value against lesser forces well 
organized and prepared, and ignoring 
also the further fact that valuable ter- 
ritory, great wealth, and commercial 
aggressiveness, accompanied by weak 
arrangements for defense, are always 
an incentive to attack. 

For many years after the Civil War 
we had a large, well-trained, though 
unorganized, reserve of officers and 
men who had seen service. This fact 
gave us for many years a sense of 
security which was well justified. 

16 



COST OF UNPREPAREDN^ESS 

Gradually this reserve of well-trained 
men has passed away. 

The Spanish War gave little train- 
ing, as did the Philippine insurrection. 
Campaigns of this kind are of limited 
value as a preparation for war with 
an organized, prepared power. Our 
reserves to-day are reserves in name 
only and consist of those trained but 
unhsted and unlocated men who have 
served in our army and have gone back 
into the mass of the people, forgotten 
and unheeded, valuable material lost. 
Their number is only a fraction in 
comparison with the well-trained alien 
reservists living in this country but 
owing military obligation to their home 
countries. The balance of our reserve 
consists of the wholly untrained and 
unprepared men of our population, of 
little military value until trained. 

17 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

The general failure to impress upon 
our people the defects, weakness and 
unreliability of our militia and volun- 
teer systems in the past, has resulted 
in an unwarranted degree of depen- 
dency upon them as reliable instru- 
ments of defense, a dependence which 
is not warranted by careful study of 
the real facts of our military history; 
a dependence which, if continued, will 
cost us dearly in case of war with an 
organized military power of the first 
class. 

The spirit of the officers and men 
who served under these systems, and 
are now serving under one of them, is 
good, but neither of the systems will 
stand the test of war with an organized 
and trained force. They will crumple 
up at the first heavy impact of such a 
force. The reason will not be the 

18 



COST OF UNPREPAREDN'ESS 

physical or moral deficiency of the 
men, but the fact that they will be un- 
trained. If all great nations were 
trusting to military props of the type 
of these, the condition as to possible 
defense would not be so serious, but 
even in this case the waste of life in 
camp and field from ignorance of the 
proper care of men and lack of train- 
ing for leading them in action, should 
condemn these systems on the ground 
of plain humanity/ 

The danger of depending on these 
systems or upon either one of them 
should be made clear to our people in 
order that their support may be had in 
establishing a sound policy, one which 

^ Every American should read Emory Up- 
ton's Military Policy of the United States, and 
follow it up with Huidekoper's work, which 
brings the statement of our military policy, or 
lack of it, up to date. 

19 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

will give the largest measure of insur- 
ance against war, one which will, if war 
be forced upon us, enable us to conduct 
it with the minimum loss of life. We 
have no right to employ the services of 
loyal and willing men under a system 
which insures the maximum loss of life 
and the minimum of success, a system 
which has been condemned by military 
experts the world over, including our 
own. A continuance of these systems, 
or either one of them, invites attack 
and greatly increases the probability 
of defeat. The real facts of our mili- 
tary history make these conclusions so 
absolutely clear that he who runs may 
read. 

" In time of peace prepare for war! " 
This was the advice of George Wash- 
ington. It was drawn from the expe- 
rience of all time. The advice was 

20 



COST OF UNPREPAREDNESS 

sound and conservative when given. It 
is of even more importance to-day, for 
the reason that organization, prepara- 
tion, rapidity of transportation, have 
all tremendously increased the rapidity 
of the onset of modern war. 

There is nothing particularly new in 
the condition of the world to-day, so 
far as our own situation is concerned, 
as the following extracts from the 
messages of the early presidents indi- 
cate. As one reads them he cannot 
fail to be impressed with the fact that 
with the change of a word here and 
there they are as applicable to condi- 
tions to-day as when written. 

On December 3, 1799, President 
John Adams, in his third annual 
address, spoke as follows: 

" At a period like the present, when 
momentous changes are occurring and 

21 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

every hour is preparing new and great 
events in the political world, when a 
spirit of war is prevalent in almost 
every nation with whose affairs the 
interests of the United States have 
any connection, unsafe and precarious 
would be our situation were we to 
neglect the means of maintaining our 
just rights. The result of the mission 
to France is uncertain; but however it 
may terminate, a steady perseverance 
in a system of national defense com- 
mensurate with our resources and the 
situation of our country is an obvious 
dictate of wisdom; for, remotely as we 
are placed from the belligerent nations, 
and desirous as we are, by doing jus- 
tice to all, to avoid off*ense to any, 
nothing short of the power of repelling 
aggressions will secure to our coun- 
try a rational prospect of escaping 

22 



COST OF UNPREPAREDNESS 

the calamities of war or national 
degradation." 

A few years later, December 3, 
1805, in his fifth annual message, 
President Thomas Jefferson said: 

" In reviewing these injuries from 
some of the belligerent powers, the 
moderation, the firmness and the wis- 
dom of the Legislature will all be 
called into action. We ought still to 
hope that time and a more correct esti- 
mate of interest, as well as of char- 
acter, will produce the justice we are 
bound to expect. But should any 
nation deceive itself by false calcula- 
tions, and disappoint that expectation, 
we must join in the unprofitable con- 
test of trying which party can do the 
other the most harm. Some of these 
injuries may perhaps admit a peace- 
able remedy. Where that is competent 

23 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

it is always the most desirable. But 
some of them are of a nature to be 
met by force only, and all of them 
may lead to it. I can not, therefore, 
but recommend such preparations as 
circumstances call for." 

Two years later, on October 27, 
1807, in his seventh annual message, 
Jefferson made the following state- 
ments : 

" Circumstances, fellow citizens, 
which seriously threatened the peace of 
our country have made it a duty to 
convene you at an earlier period than 
usual. The love of peace so much 
cherished in the bosoms of our citizens, 
which has so long guided the proceed- 
ings of their public councils and 
induced forbearance under so many 
wrongs, may not insure our continu- 
ance in the quiet pursuits of industry. 

24 



COST OF UNPREPAREDNESS 

The many injuries and depredations 
committed on our commerce and navi- 
gation upon the high seas for years 
past, the successive innovations on 
those principles and usage of nations 
as the rule of their rights and peace, 
and all the circumstances which induced 
the extraordinary mission to London 
are already known to you. 

" Under the acts of March 11 and 
April 23, respecting arms, the difficulty 
of procuring them from abroad during 
the present situation and dispositions of 
Europe, induced us to direct our whole 
efforts to the means of internal supply. 
The public factories have therefore 
been enlarged, additional machineries 
erected, and, in proportion as artificers 
can be found or formed, their effect, 
already more than doubled, may be 
increased so as to keep pace with the 

25 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

yearly increase of the militia. The 
annual sums appropriated by the latter 
act have been directed to the encour- 
agement of private factories of arms, 
and contracts have been entered into 
with individual undertakers to nearly 
the amount of the first year's appro- 
priation." 

On February 18, 1815, President 
James Madison, in a special message, 
said: 

" Experience has taught us that 
neither the pacific dispositions of the 
American people nor the pacific char- 
acter of their political institutions can 
altogether exempt them from that 
strife which appears beyond the ordi- 
nary lot of nations to be incident to 
the actual period of the world, and the 
same faithful monitor demonstrates 
that a certain degree of preparation 

26 



COST OF UNPREPAREDNESS 

for war is not only indispensable to 
avert disasters in the onset, but affords 
also the best security for the contin- 
uance of peace." 

And on December 5, 1815, in his 
seventh annual message, Madison wrote 
as follows: 

" Notwithstanding the security for 
future repose which the United States 
ought to find in their love of peace and 
their constant respect for the rights of 
other nations, the character of the times 
particularly inculcates the lesson that, 
whether to prevent or repel danger, we 
ought not to be unprepared for it. This 
consideration will sufficiently recom- 
mend to Congress a liberal provision 
for the immediate extension and grad- 
ual completion of the works of defense, 
both fixed and floating, on our mari- 
time frontier, and an adequate provi- 

27 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

sion for guarding our inland frontier 
against dangers to which certain por- 
tions of it may continue to be exposed." 

The foregoing are quoted at some 
length for the purpose of pointing out 
that there is nothing new in the advice 
which is being given us for prepara- 
tion. The general conditions under 
which nations live always render ade- 
quate preparation necessary, and our 
country is no exception to the rule. 
We stand to-day after a period of a 
hundred years as we shall probably 
stand a hundred years hence, in a 
position that renders adequate meas- 
ures of defense absolutely necessary, if 
we consider our institutions and our 
rights worth defending, and are to 
defend them successfully against pow- 
erful adversaries. 

Our presidents throughout the entire 
28 



COST OF UNPREPAREDNESS 

period of our national life have con- 
stantly warned our people with refer- 
ence to preparedness, not only as a 
measure necessary for the successful 
conduct of war, but more often as a 
means of preventing war. 

International relations are in a little 
less precarious condition in these days, 
speaking of the world at large, because 
the telegraph, the wireless, and rapid 
transmission of dispatches to all por- 
tions of the world, make full and 
prompt explanation of misunderstand- 
ings possible. On the other hand, 
rapid transport and complete organiza- 
tion make preparation even more 
necessary, as less time is given to pre- 
pare after war is decided upon. 

Earnest efforts have been made for 
arbitration and the maintenance of 
world peace, but, as present conditions 

29 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

indicate, success is still remote, and 
every nation, while striving for peace, 
must make adequate preparation to 
defend its life. 



30 



1 

CHAPTEE II ; 



The Struggle for Peace 

"But in demonstrating by our con- 
duct that we do not fear war in the 
necessary protection of our rights 
and honor_, we should give no room to 
infer that we abandon the desire of 
peace. An efficient preparation for 
war can alone secure peace." — John 
Adams t Second Annual Message. 



J 



There is nothing new in the move- 
ment for peace. It is centuries old. 
Men have dreamed of it since they 
had things of value to hold. Women 
have prayed for it through the ages. 
Good people have looked forward to 
the day of peace and tranquility since 
the beginning of written history, and 
doubtless long before. Just as they 

31 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

have desired to avoid great misfor- 
tunes, plagues, earthquakes, fire, or 
famine, so they have struggled to 
escape war, except in those instances 
where war was the lesser of two evils. 
Yet war is with us to-day, was with 
us yesterday, and so through all the 
years since histoiy records man's action 
or tradition tells of his deeds. 

To-day, initiated as a rule with more 
formality, conducted with greater 
regard for the lives of the noncom- 
batants, and characterized by a larger 
measure of observance of the dictates 
of humanity in the treatment of pris- 
oners and the helpless, war is still with 
us. Peace leagues struggle to prevent 
it; great alliances attempt to abate 
it through preponderant forces — 
through war itself, if need be. 

Arbitration serves to lessen it a 
32 



THE STRUGGLE FOR PEACE 

little through disposing of many minor 
questions which, if allowed to grow, 
might bring about disputes resulting 
in war. As one of the means of pos- 
sible avoidance of a resort to force, 
we welcome arbitration with open arms 
and strive to give it the largest meas- 
ure of success, although realizing that 
in many cases it will not avail to pre- 
vent that final resort to force which 
can only be avoided when all great 
powers think alike. That time will 
come only when absolutely unselfish 
justice marks international relations; 
when trade is equitably shared among 
competing peoples; when the rich help 
freely the poor; when competition, 
greed, selfishness, race interests and 
prejudices and religious intolerance 
pass away; when men and nations have 
no fixed convictions which differ from 

33 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

those of others; when they neither 
dream dreams nor see visions. Until 
then, strive as we may, the cry will be 
"Peace! Peace!" and yet there will 
be no permanent peace. Nevertheless, 
we must strive unceasingly to reduce 
war to the minimum, and to build up 
arbitration, but in so doing we must 
not lose sight of the fact that our 
efforts will not always be successful. 
An infinite wisdom has established 
the conditions under which we live and 
put in being the great law which runs 
through the universe: the law of the 
survival of the most fit. We may 
struggle against it, but it rules in its 
general application. The most fit in 
a military way, which includes good 
bodies, based on good food, careful 
sanitation, well thought-out training, 
clear intelligence resting on good 

34 



THE STRUGGLE FOR PEACE 

schools and early training, good arma- 
ment, equipment and organization, all 
springing from intelligence and edu- 
cation applied to self -protection and 
expansion of interests and trade, will 
win in war just as they win in 
commerce. 

They may not be the most fit in 
abstract morality as relates to busi- 
ness relations between individuals or 
nations, or with regard to generosity 
or sense of justice. The characteristics 
of selfishness, self-interest and the 
spirit of acquisitiveness are often 
accompanied by a development of the 
means to get what is coveted and to 
hold it securely. Human nature in 
the mass is still human nature; under 
a little more restraint, perhaps, but 
still the old complex proposition of 
the ages, characterized and controlled 

35 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

only too often by expediency and self- 
interest. 

Nations are but collections of indi- 
viduals; we need courts for the 
individual man, and courts are of no 
avail without the police. In the vast 
group of individuals constituting a 
community, city or nation, the resort 
to force by small groups representing 
perhaps a thousandth, or less, of the 
population, is a nuisance and is not 
permitted by the great aggregation of 
the individuals among whom they live, 
as it interferes with the interest and 
activities, often safety, of too many 
other people. The individuals in the 
community of nations are few in num- 
ber, and it is much less easy to bring 
preponderant force to the control or 
restraint of the more powerful. 

Yet as men struggle within the 
36 



THE STRUGGLE FOR PEACE 

community and too often resort to 
force unless restrained, so do nations 
struggle and resort to force in the 
world community, only here counter 
force in the form of international 
police has never been resorted to. Can 
it be effectively done while there still 
exist strong groups characterized by 
century-old prejudices of race and 
interest? This is one of the great 
questions of the hour. While consider- 
ing it we should not neglect prepara- 
tion for defense or fail to recognize 
conditions as they are. 

The maintenance of peace and the 
prevention of war have been attempted 
through alliances to compel or regulate 
the action of other groups or other 
combinations of nations, by efforts so 
to group nations as to maintain the 
balance of power between people whose 

37 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

territorial expansion and increase of 
population and interests might other- 
wise jeopardize peace. These efforts 
have usually resulted in war sooner 
or later, although in many instances 
serving to maintain peace for long 
periods. The policy of no combination 
satisfies the greed, ambition or policy 
of all its members, and eventually the 
dominating interest of one or more 
members of such a combination, or the 
injection of new interests or condi- 
tions, serves after a time to bring 
about the loosening of the bonds of the 
alliance and the formation of new 
combinations, too often with a resort 
to force as the final argument. 

Thus far we see little prospect of 
change. We may hold down for a 
time the explosive pressure or give it a 
safe vent, but from time to time human 

38 



THE STRUGGLE FOR PEACE 

effort will fail and the explosion will 
occur. In other words, the controlling 
nations are too few in number and 
their vital interests are so coincident 
or interwoven with those of the con- 
trolled nations that constant changes 
and rearrangements result in this 
grouping, and these changes inevitably 
bring about an appeal to force. It is 
difficult to see how this condition can 
be changed so long as national lines 
exist and racial groups continue, or 
certain trade areas remain under the 
control of these groups. 

Justice and righteousness are not 
enough to insure protection, nor is an 
upright and blameless personal or 
national life a guarantee against the 
unscrupulous. A Pilate was found to 
crucify Christ; and a strong, aggres- 
sive nation, believing in its own worth 

39 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

and right to expand, has always been 
prone to crush and coerce a weaker 
one, regardless of the abstract justice 
of the weaker nation's cause. 

Why all these things are, is a ques- 
tion which this world cannot answer in 
precise terms, and with such answer we 
are not at this moment concerned. 

We can with justice say that public 
and national morality is largely the 
reflection of the education of our 
youth. Given sound moral training in 
the home, a healthy body and a devel- 
oped sense of justice and fair play, 
and you have the youth who will most 
probably make the sound, just and 
normal man in public life, the best 
citizen, and, collectively, when assem- 
bled in legislative bodies or engaged in 
executive or administrative work, the 
man who will act on the most just, 

40 



THE STRUGGLE FOR PEACE 

reasonable and tolerant lines. But 
even among men of this class there 
will be strong differences of opinion 
and it is little short of folly to assume 
the contrary. We may diminish the 
frequency of strife and make more 
humane the struggle, but for the 
present nothing more. 

Blood, race, tradition, trade and a 
host of other influences, capped by 
ambition to go on, to lead, to expand, 
will always produce strife. We cannot 
escape this conclusion if we take as 
our guide the evidence of things done 
and being done, rather than follow the 
dictates of fancy or desire. The strug- 
gle for peace is centuries old, and 
efforts to end war and establish undis- 
turbed peace have filled the minds of 
men and taxed the resources of nations. 
The great combinations of power to 

41 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

prevent war were, after all, but combi- 
nations of forces to restrain the exer- 
cise of force, and have more often 
than not ended in a great struggle for 
readjustment of the balance of power. 
The theories and policies of addled 
minds and shallow intelligences, prod- 
ucts of the applause of the lecture 
platform, or of minds upset by the 
flattery incident to sudden wealth, have^ 
had their share of attention, and even 
of sympathy. After all, they indicate 
only a failure to understand that war 
generally has its roots running deep 
below the surface that is swept by the 
gaze of such observers. The authors 
of these theories never have studied 
seriously the causes of war. They 
assign as causes the little incidents 
which serve to touch off the mass of 
explosive which other forces have been 

42 



THE STRUGGLE FOR PEACE 

accumulating and piling up for a gen- 
eration or perhaps a century. 

War, whether it be for evil or good, 
is among men, and our clear duty is 
to recognize this fact, instead of deny- 
ing the evidence of our senses simply 
because it is disagreeable and brutal, 
something that we would get rid of. 
Our duty is to protect ourselves as best 
we can against war and build our pro- 
tection on so secure a foundation and 
maintain its efficiency so systematically 
that our own institutions, ideals and 
interests may be secure and that we 
may be able to hand down to our 
children all the benefits we have 
received from our fathers. God has 
given us eyes to see, ears to hear, and 
intelligence and memory to glean and 
carry from the lessons of the past some- 
thing of wisdom to guide us in meeting 

43 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

the issues of the present. If we fail to 
make the best use of those faculties 
which have been given us, we must 
pay the penalty. 

We must continue to strive for world 
peace, for the betterment of human 
conditions; we must do what we can to 
promote arbitration, love of justice; 
but we have no right to forget that 
none of these will serve to protect us 
against an unjust aggressor. Let us 
do all these good things, but at the 
same time take those measures of wise 
precaution which the experience of 
time and of all people teaches, that we 
may be prepared to defend with force 
those things which justice, honesty and 
fair dealing are inadequate of them- 
selves to defend? As Cromwell said: 
" Trust in God — but keep your 
powder dry." In other words, do 



THE STRUGGLE FOR PEACE 

right, but do not trust to that alone. 
The highwayman is not especially con- 
cerned with the morals of the man 
whose purse he covets, nor is the great 
nation struggling for trade and expan- 
sion disposed to give especial consider- 
ation to the morals of the people 
standing in her way. Every nation 
does, however, give serious and prompt 
heed to the strength and ability of 
another to hold and protect what she 
has. 

After going over the evidence of 
past results and present conditions, we 
must realize that arbitration to-day 
cannot as a rule be depended upon for 
protection or even as a means of delay- 
ing a resort to force, except in such 
cases as are not of vital importance to 
either of the disputants. Questions of 
citizenship, cases arising under the 

45 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

Monroe Doctrine — in which we are 
particularly interested — are among 
those which cannot well be turned 
over to arbitration. Our interests in 
them are vital. 

Preparedness to resist injustice or 
attack with force tends to amplify the 
possibilities of successful arbitration, 
as the cost and danger of the strug- 
gle and the uncertainty of the out- 
come are evident. Preparedness lends 
weight to just claims and makes the 
would-be aggressor hesitate. It is the 
well-guarded house in which the robber 
sees the danger and realizes the cost. 
It does not mean that the people of 
the house are less just because they 
have had the good sense to recognize 
conditions and take the wise measure 
of protection. 

All arbitration has a much better 
46 



THE STRUGGLE FOR PEACE 

chance of success when each party 
realizes that the other has the abihty 
to make strong opposition to unjust 
claims. A country unable to defend 
her rights on land and sea is not the 
country to determine whether arbitra- 
tion or force is to be resorted to. It 
is the strong, well-prepared nation 
which will determine whether a dispute 
is to be settled by arms or arbitration, 
not the weak and unprepared one. 

Washington's words still hold good: 
" To be prepared for war is one of the 
most effectual means of preserving 
peace." The assertion so often made 
that preparedness increases the proba- 
bihty of war, is unsound from every 
standpoint, unless those who make the 
assertion assume that we should not 
engage in war in any case but rather 
submit passively to whatever demands 

47 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

are made upon us. The resort to 
aggressive force will always be gov- 
erned to a certain extent by the ques- 
tion of cost — cost in men and treasure. 
If no serious resistance is possible on 
the part of one party to a dispute, the 
temptation of the stronger and better 
prepared to use force is great; if the 
reverse is the case, consideration and 
a disposition to arbitrate may be 
counted on. 

Every dictate of common sense, the 
teaching of history and the lessons of 
the moment, suggest strongly and 
unmistakably the urgent necessity of 
the organization of the might of the 
nation, in order that we may be ready 
to meet force with force, if other 
means fail. Reliance on peace treaties 
is not a safe policy. Experience shows 
they often mean little in the face of 

48 



THE STRUGGLE FOR PEACE 

a great crisis threatening the life and 
interests of a nation. 

Preparedness does not mean militar- 
ism or an aggressive military spirit; it 
means simply the application to the 
military questions of the day of some- 
thing of the experience and lessons of 
the past as well as those of the present. 
A man armed against thieves is not 
prone to become a thief unless he is 
one at heart. A nation can be strong 
without being immoral or a bully. 
Militarism, as indicated by the exist- 
ence of a military class demanding and 
receiving special consideration and pre- 
cedence and exercising an undue influ- 
ence in the internal affairs of the nation 
or upon its international relations, is 
to be avoided beyond peradventure. 
But effective preparedness can be had 
without a trace of this condition, as 

49 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

illustrated by Switzerland and France 
— taking only representative forms of 
government as examples. 

The entire trend of our sentiment, 
past and present, disproves the possi- 
bility of such a condition of affairs. 
No class of the population is more 
opposed to the establishment of a 
condition of militarism than the army 
itself. The army is absolutely demo- 
cratic, representing, as it does, all 
classes of the people. The great dan- 
ger which confronts our people is that 
which arises from an ignorance of the 
organization and capacity for the 
prompt use of highly organized force 
on the part of all the great nations 
except China and ourselves. While 
talking peace and arbitration we are, 
through wealth, commercial aggressive- 
ness and heedlessness as to preparation 

50 



THE STRUGGLE FOR PEACE 

to defend our rights and properties, 
one of the great menaces to peace. 
Lack of intelligent preparedness can^ 
not promote peace; it can and does 
prejudice its continuance and will cer- 
tainly serve to prolong and make more 
deadly the effects of war. 

It is an insult to us as a people to 
assume that we cannot be strong and 
prepared to fight for the right with- 
out becoming likely to use our power 
for wrong. This is the cant of weak- 
lings who have no strong convictions 
of right for which they are willing to 
die, if need be. Let us drop cant and 
hypocrisy and be sure that we can be 
both strong enough to protect our own 
rights and interests, and just and self- 
restrained enough, even though strong, 
to respect those of others. There is 
no real basis for assuming that if we 

51 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

prepare to resist aggression we are 
likely to become aggressors. 

We have no right to jeopardize all 
we have and hold most dear by failing 
to organize and prepare our strength 
because of the fear that if strong, 
organized and ready, our nation may 
become an international highwayman. 
Rubbish and cant of the faint-hearted! 
Lacking the spirit which places prin- 
ciples and honor above fear and 
wounds ! 

Peace treaties — international law 
— they should be observed, but they 
are not always. Where are those who 
trusted them and forgot that force is 
still to be reckoned with? The great 
Peace Palace stands empty in the land 
of a prosperous, industrious people at 
present under arms to protect their own 
neutrality. None of the causes of the 

52 



THE STRUGGLE FOR PEACE 

greatest war of the ages has been or is 
being heard within its walls. Inter- 
national law has been too often only 
the will of the strongest and may be 
again. It is at the best but a feeble 
staff to lean on, when issues involving 
the life of a nation, or nations, are 
involved. 

As Washington said: ** The best 
way to make a good peace is to have 
a good army," — using the word 
" army " in the sense of military force, 
which includes the navy; and he might 
have said that the best way to preserve 
peace is to be prepared against war. 
We should favor preparedness not 
only on the grounds of safety, but on 
the grounds of humanity, for it is a 
brutal waste of life to send an undisci- 
plined and untrained people into war, 
and war will come, from time to time, 

53 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

do what we may to try to avoid it. 
_No nation does more to tempt others 
to war than one which, possessing much 
of the trade and more than her propor- 
tion of the wealth of the world, fails to 
make adequate preparations to guard 
what she has. 



54 



chapter iii 
Past National Policy 

**A government is the murderer of 
its citizens which sends them to the 
field uninformed and untaught, where 
they are to meet men of the same age 
and strength mechanized by education 
and disciplined for battle." — General 
Richard Henry Lee. 

We are a warlike, but not a mili- 
tary people; that is to say, we are 
quick to resent injury and ready to 
meet force with force, but we are not 
organized to employ force effectively. 
We are commercially aggressive; we 
are exceedingly rich. We never have 
submitted and are still indisposed to 
submit ourselves to discipline or prepa- 
ration. We spend human life like 

55 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

water and pay with blood and treasure 
for the lack of ordinary intelligent 
preparation. We are not so much 
unready to resort to war for the right 
if need be as we are unprepared to 
wage it. We hate militarism, object 
to large standing armies, and prop- 
erly, and we can continue so to do and 
still make full preparation on lines not 
at variance with our ideals or the prin- 
ciples laid down by the founders. 

In our country peace societies are 
not a new idea. The New York Peace 
Society was founded in 1815, and as 
long ago as 1827 there were many 
peace societies in the United States. 
The effort has passed through many 
stages; the pacifists of to-day must not 
flatter themselves that they have dis- 
covered that war is brutal. Cicero 
emphasized it in his day. Seneca char- 

5Q 



PAST NATIONAL POLICY 

acterized war as "plain insanity." If 
it could be stopped by pointing out 
that it is brutal and gives pain, it 
would have been stopped long ago. 

We must realize that there are two 
types of peace. There is the peace 
of Rome under Augustus, which was 
a real peace, and Rome and Roman 
citizens were respected by their neigh- 
bors; and there is the other type, the 
peace of Honorius, in whose time 
pacifists prated as they do at pres- 
sent. Nonresistance was the theory. 
Emperor Honorius raised poultry and 
the barbarians overran the empire. In 
the first instance there was peace with 
honor and dignity; in the second 
instance the empire was overrun, a 
civilization almost destroyed through 
failure to listen to the teachings of 
history and make reasonable, rational 

57 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

preparation. It was the sort of peace 
which has existed in China. It was 
the kind of peace which marks the 
decadence of a nation. It goes hand 
in hand with the poUcy advocated 
by the peace-at-any-price people of 
to-day. 

Our early presidents were most of 
them truly great men, lovers of peace; 
some of them had participated in war, 
and all of them had lived through 
periods of war. They were just and 
upright in character. What was their 
advice to our people? Washington 
says, in his first annual address: 

" To be prepared for war is one of 
the most effectual means of preserving 
peace. A free people ought not only 
to be armed, but disciplined; to which 
end a uniform and well digested plan 
is requisite; and their safety and inter- 

58 



PAST NATIONAL POLICY 

est require that they should promote 
such manufactures as tend to render 
them independent of others for essen- 
tial, particularly military, supplies." 

In his third annual message, speak- 
ing of the militia, which under the pro- 
visions of the organic law included men 
from eighteen to forty-five, Washing- 
ton said: 

" The safety of the United States, 
under divine protection, ought to rest 
on the basis of systematic and solid 
arrangements, exposed as little as pos- 
sible to the hazards of fortuitous cir- 
cumstances." 

In his fifth annual message he made 
this statement: 

" I cannot recoinmend to your notice 
measures for the fulfillment of our 
duties to the rest of the world without 
again pressing upon you the necessity 

59 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

of placing ourselves in a condition of 
complete defense and of extracting 
from them the fulfillment of their 
duties towards us. The United States 
ought not to indulge a persuasion that, 
contrary to the order of human events, 
they wiU forever keep at a distance 
those painful appeals to arms with 
which the history of every other nation 
abounds. There is a rank due to the 
United States among nations which 
will be withheld, if not absolutely lost, 
by the reputation of weakness. If we 
desire to avoid insult we must be able 
to repel it ; if we desire to secure peace, 
one of the most powerful instruments 
of our rising prosperity, it must be 
known that we are at all times ready 
for war." 

In Washington's eighth annual ad- 
dress, speaking of the country's inabil- 

ao 



PAST NATIONAL POLICY 

ity to protect its commerce, he said: 
" Will it not then be advisable to 
begin without delay to provide and lay 
up materials for the building and 
equipping of ships of war and to pro- 
ceed in the work by degrees in pro- 
portion as our resources shall render it 
practicable without inconvenience, so 
that a future war in Europe may not 
find our commerce in the same unpro- 
tected state in which it was found dur- 
ing the present?" 

John Adams, in a special message, 
stated : '* With a view and as a meas- 
ure which even in time of universal 
peace ought not to be neglected, I 
recommend to your consideration a 
revision of the laws for organizing, 
arming and disciplining the militia, to 
render that natural and safe defense 
of the country efficacious." 

61 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

In his second annual message, which 
dealt with our relations with France, 
President Adams declared: "But in 
demonstrating by our conduct that we 
do not fear war in the necessary pro- 
tection of our rights and honor, we 
should give no room to infer that we 
abandon the desire of peace. An effi- 
cient preparation for war can alone 
secure peace. We ought, without loss 
of time, to lay the foundations for 
that increase of our navy to a size suffi- 
cient to guard our coasts and protect 
our trade." 

Thomas Jefferson, in his fifth annual 
message, advocated: "The organiza- 
tion of 300,000 able-bodied men 
between the ages of 18 and 26, for 
defense at any time or at any place 
where they may be wanted." 

In a letter to James Monroe, from 
62 



PAST NATIONAL POLICY 

Monticello, dated June 19, 1813, Jef- 
ferson wrote: 

" It proves more forcibly the neces- 
sity of obliging every citizen to be a 
soldier. This was the case with the 
Greeks and Romans, and must be that 
of every free state. Where there is no 
oppression there will be no pauper hire- 
lings. We must train and classify the 
whole of our male citizens, and make 
military instruction a regular part of 
collegiate education. We can never be 
safe till this is done." 

This letter was written fourteen 
months before the fiasco at Bladens- 
burg and the burning of Washington. 
Again he says: 

" If war be forced upon us in spite 
of our long and vain appeals to the 
justice of nations, rapid and vigorous 
movement at the outset will go far 

63 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

toward securing us in its course and 
issue, and toward throwing its burdens 
on those who render necessary the 
resort from reason to force. 

" Considering the conditions of the 
times in which we live, our attention 
should unremittingly be fixed on the 
safety of our country. For a people 
who are free and who mean to remain 
so, a well-organized and armed militia 
is their best security." 

One might continue almost indefi- 
nitely to quote from the messages and 
state papers of our presidents, con- 
cerning this great matter of defense, 
organization and readiness. 

General Henry Knox, when Secre- 
tary of War, sent to President Wash- 
ington, on January 18, 1790, a plan 
which provided for the enrolling, classi- 
fying and training of all able-bodied 

64 



PAST NATIONAL POLICY 

men from eighteen to sixty years of 
age. General Knox refers to the fact 
that this plan had been previously pre- 
sented to Washington, had been modi- 
fied somewhat, and as now finally 
presented had Washington's approval. 
Among other things he states in his 
letter of transmission: 

" It had been my anxious desire to 
devise a national system of defense 
adequate to the probable exigencies of 
the United States, whether arising 
from internal or external causes; and 
at the same time to erect a standard 
of republican magnanimity, inde- 
pendent of, and superior to, the 
powerful influence of wealth." 

Both Washington and Knox had 
had unfortunate experiences with the 
untrained militia during the Revolu- 
tion, and the plan they now proposed 

65 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

was not one which contemplated the 
use of militia as it was used during 
the Revolution, but it was, in effect, 
the forerunner of the idea voiced by 
Jeff'erson in 1813, namely, the organ- 
izing, classifying and training of the 
male population. General Knox pre- 
cedes his plan by a long introduction, 
much of which was apparently written 
by Washington. Among other state- 
ments therein made, worthy of note 
are the following: 

"But it is at the same time acknowl- 
edged that, unless a republic prepares 
itself by proper arrangements to meet 
those exigencies to which all states are 
in a degree liable, its peace and exist- 
ence are more precarious than the 
forms of government in which the will 
of one directs the conduct of the whole, 
for the defense of the nation. 

66 



PAST NATIONAL POLICY 

"It is the intention of the present 
attempt to suggest the most efficient 
system of defense which may be com- 
patible with the interests of a free 
people — a system which will not only 
produce the expected effect, but which, 
in its operations, shall also produce 
those habits and manners which will 
impart strength and durability to the 
whole government. 

" All discussions on the subject of 
a powerful militia will result in one or 
other of the following principles: 

" First : Either efficient institutions 
must be established for the military 
education of the youth, and that the 
knowledge acquired therein shall be 
diffused throughout the community by 
the means of rotation; or, 

" Secondly: That the militia must 
be formed of substitutes, after the 

67 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

manner of the militia of Great Britain. 

" If the United States possess the 
vigor of mind to establish the first 
institution, it may be reasonably- 
expected to produce the most unequiv- 
ocal advantages. A glorious national 
spirit will be introduced, with its exten- 
sive train of political consequences. 
The youth will imbibe a love of their 
country; reverence and obedience to its 
laws; courage and elevation of mind; 
openness and liberality of character, 
accompanied by a just spirit of honor; 
in addition to which their bodies will 
acquire robustness, greatly conducive 
to their personal happiness, as well as 
the defense of their country, while 
habit, with its silent but efficacious 
operations, will cement the system. 

" Every intelligent mind would 
rejoice in the establishment of an insti- 

68 



PAST NATIONAL POLICY 

tution, under whose auspices the youth 
and vigor of the constitution would 
be renewed Avith each successive gen- 
eration, and which would appear to 
secure the great principles of freedom 
and happiness against the injuries of 
time and events." 

General Knox then concludes his 
letter with the following summary: 

" First : That it is the indispensable 
duty of every nation to establish all 
necessary institutions for its own per- 
fection and defense. 

" Secondly: That it is a capital 
security to a free state for the great 
body of the people to possess a compe- 
tent knowledge of the military art. 

"Thirdly: That this knowledge 
cannot be attained, in the present state 
of society, but by establishing adequate 
institutions for the military education 

69 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

of the youth; and that the knowledge 
acquired therein should be diffused 
throughout the community by the prin- 
ciples of rotation. 

" Fourthly: That every man of the 
proper age and ability of body, is 
firmly bound, by the special compact, 
to perform personally his proportion 
of military duty for the defense of the 
state. 

"Fifthly: That all men of the legal 
military age should be armed, enrolled 
and held responsible for different 
degrees of military service. 

"And, sixthly: That, agreeably to 
the Constitution, the United States are 
to provide for arming, organizing and 
disciplining the militia, and for gov- 
erning such a part of it as may be 
employed in the service of the United 
States, reserving to the states, respec- 

70 



PAST NATIONAL POLICY 

lively, the appointment of the officers 
and the authority of training the 
militia according to the discipline pre- 
scribed by Congress." 

This plan, briefly stated, consisted 
of the grouping of physically and 
mentally fit men, between the ages of 
eighteen and sixty years of age, into 
three corps. The young men between 
eighteen and twenty-one years of age 
formed the Advance Corps, and the 
men between twenty-one and forty-five 
formed the Main Corps. There was a 
third, or Reserve Corps, which con- 
sisted of men from forty-five to sixty 
years of age. The plan further pro- 
vided that these first and second 
groups should be organized into vari- 
ous military units; that the young men 
of eighteen and nineteen years of age 
should receive thirty days' training in 

71 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

camp each year; the men of twenty, 
ten days of training in camp each year ; 
the men from twenty-one to forty-five, 
four days of training each year. 

This was a federal force and it was 
to be equipped, armed and subsisted at 
the expense of the United States; its 
members were required to take an oath 
of allegiance to the state and to the 
United States. Herein was an element 
of weakness. A force of this kind, or 
any kind of national force, should be 
purely a federal force. Its officers 
should be appointed by the president 
on the federal authority and it should 
be available for service within or with- 
out the United States. The plan was 
a great advance over anything hitherto 
proposed, inasmuch as it recognized 
the necessity for general military train- 
ing. The training of these troops was 

72 



PAST NATIONAL POLICY 

to be prescribed by the United States. 
The early plan was a tremendous 
improvement over the militia idea 
finally adopted. It would have 
resulted in the general military train- 
ing of our people and the dissemina- 
tion of a knowledge of our military 
policy. It represented an appreciation 
of the necessity for military training. 
Had this system been adopted, the 
War of 1812 would probably never 
have occurred. Or, if it had occurred, 
we should have been quickly success- 
ful in obtaining our objective. Both 
Washington and Knox recognized 
the economic efficiency which would 
be gained by this training, and 
they also realized that a tremendous 
improvement in citizenship would 
result. They did not expect the men 
from forty-five to sixty to serve in 

73 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

the first line, but they saw that they 
would be a valuable asset on the lines 
of communication, depots, and other 
important fields of activity where the 
highest degree of physical excellence 
is not required. This proposed act, if 
it had been passed and put into eiFect, 
would have saved many tens of thou- 
sands of lives and many hundreds of 
millions of money. 

If the advice of our early presidents 
was sound at the time it was given, 
when the ocean was a real barrier 
instead of, as at the present time, the 
readiest means of approach, once sea 
control is lost ; when troops were moved 
over sea by sailing ships of relatively 
small capacity; when none of the great 
nations contained large, highly organ- 
ized and equipped armies prepared for 
prompt movement in any direction; 

74 



PAST NATIONAL POLICY 

when tHe arms of war were simple and 
easy of manufacture and easy to 
acquire familiarity with; when we had 
little in the way of commerce or wealth 
to tempt aggression; how much more 
sound is it now, when all great nations 
have highly organized armies, large 
reserves of men and material, adequate 
equipment of all kinds? 

Since then steam has divided time 
and distance by ten; the arms of war 
are most intricate and require a long 
time to manufacture, and it takes a 
still longer time to teach men to use 
them effectively; our wealth has 
enormously increased; our commerce 
spreads over the earth and we hold 
great areas far beyond our continental 
limits; our people are unskilled in the 
use of arms, and our population as a 
whole has little appreciation of its 

75 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

military obligation. There is no ques- 
tion but that the advice of our early 
presidents is entitled to much more 
attention to-day than when given. 

This country has never engaged 
single-handed in a war with a nation 
of the first class prepared for war. 
We have absolutely no conception of 
what modern war means when con- 
ducted by a nation organized and ready 
in men and material. It is to be hoped 
that we may never have this experience, 
certainly not until we have learned 
something from the experience of 
others, something from the lessons of 
the past as well as those of the present. 

We have no markedly superior mili- 
tary virtues; as a people, the blood of 
all peoples runs in our veins. We 
live under a form of government which 
tends to develop individuality and self- 

76 



PAST NATIONAL POLICY 

confidence, good qualities if coordi- 
nated and harmonized by discipline. 
But there is nothing which indicates 
peculiar or superior military excellence, 
and there is nothing in our military 
history upon which we can found such 
an assumption. We have splendid 
material for soldiers, if trained, but 
without training that material is rela- 
tively of little value. 

There seems to be a general impres- 
sion that, having blundered through 
our past wars with a hideously 
unnecessary expenditure of life and 
treasure, somehow or other we shall 
continue to blunder on successfully, 
regardless of lack of preparation on 
our part or of thorough organization 
and preparation on the part of our 
possible antagonist. Such an opinion 
is absolutely unwarranted. Thorough 

77 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

preparation is absolutely indispensable. 
General Hariy Lee — popularly 
known as *' Light-Horse Harry" — 
stated at the end of the Revolution 
that the nation was the murderer of 
its men which sent them untrained 
and undisciplined to meet equally good 
men, mechanized and disciplined by 
training. These words were true when 
they were uttered and they are true 
to-day, and they apply with peculiar 
force to our own people. It is not 
enough to be willing — we must be 
prepared. One would not think of 
putting into a lifeboat men who could 
neither row nor swim; and yet we 
assume to send them into battle undis- 
ciplined and untrained, unfamiliar with 
the use of arms, where they are to 
meet men trained to the minute. It is 
murder — nothing else. 

78 



PAST NATIONAL POLICY 

If a lot of men physically of the 
right type presented themselves for 
the crews or for the teams of a uni- 
versity and said they were willing to 
go into athletics, but would not train, 
they would receive scant courtesy at 
the hands of their college mates. 
Experience in athletics has taught that 
success is absolutely dependent upon 
thorough preparation; and the would- 
be athlete who assumed that he could 
meet, with any hope of success, an 
equally good man, physically fit and 
trained in all the details of the game, 
would be looked upon as little better 
than a fool. 

So it is with professional soldiers, 
who have devoted their lives to their 
work: they see the folly of the idle 
declarations of the Fourth of July 
orator, or the equally fatuous and mis- 

79 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

leading statements of the men who say 
that we, by virtue of peculiar qualities, 
are superior to equally good men, 
trained and ready. Such vain boasts 
are more than foolish — they are dan- 
gerous. They strike at the very life 
of the nation. If we heed them longer 
we shall repent in sackcloth and ashes. 
While students of military policy 
and our professional soldiers of the 
best type — not the machine-cut-and- 
dried type, but the soldiers with learn- 
ing and imagination — have always 
recognized that campaigns are won in 
the preparations for them, our people 
have never appreciated this great truth, 
nor do they realize that thorough 
organization of the nation's resources 
in men, material and money is neces- 
sary to a success which shall be charac- 
terized by the minimum loss of blood 

80 



PAST NATIONAL POLICY 

and treasure. Battles are won as well 
as lost in the national legislature, in 
the offices of the administration, in 
departments, as well as in the field. 
Failure to provide means for conduct- 
ing the war, neglect properly to 
organize, undue interference by non- 
technical persons in the direction of 
that highly specialized and technical 
business, war, the direction of opera- 
tions to meet political demands of the 
hour, all contribute, with fateful force, 
to the outcome of the armed struggle. 
Under our procedure in the past, 
the soldier too often has had little to 
say in the great question of prepara- 
tion in its varied forms, involving 
organization, supply and equipment, 
and only too often has found himself 
like a sailor put on board a ship in a 
gale of wind — a ship built not by 

81 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

professional shipbuilders — a ship of 
whose equipment and personnel he is 
largely ignorant. All he can do is to 
make the best of a bad situation, 
reorganize and re-equip in the face of 
a storm. So it has been only too 
often with our soldiers, called to lead 
badly organized, uninstructed, half- 
armed bodies of troops without previ- 
ous training. This describes, in a 
general way, the situation which has 
existed at the beginning of our wars 
in the past. These conditions should 
not be possible in future wars; but 
they will be unless we study thoroughly 
the question in all its aspects, and take 
wise measures of precaution and make 
such preparation as the experience of 
the past and the best information of 
the present indicate. 

When our people offer their bodies 
82 



PAST NATIONAL POLICY 

and their lives to the nation for service 
in war in the nation's defense, they 
have a right to demand that these 
sacrifices shall be made — if made they 
must be — under conditions which min- 
imize the probability of disaster from 
lack of preparation, instruction, arms, 
equipment or organization, both on 
the fighting line and behind it. 

Preparation will tend to make the 
struggle as brief as possible, and 
reduce the cost in life and treasure to 
the lowest possible limit. Our people 
have never entered into war with any 
of these assurances. They have gone 
into it blindly, uninformed as to the 
necessity of the hundred and one 
things which make for preparation 
and which are the sure foundations of 
success. National defense begins with 
the people, and must find its main sup- 

83 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

port among their representatives, for, 
as John Adams said, " National de- 
fense is one of the cardinal duties of a 
statesman; the soldier can only endorse 
when asked; the statesman must advo- 
cate, and the legislative body enact." 
Only too often do we find men who 
should know better, speaking of our 
great military resources, forgetting 
that unless developed and organized 
they will be of no more value in the 
quick onrush of modern war, initiated 
by a prepared nation, than would an 
undeveloped gold mine in Alaska be 
in a crisis in Wall Street. The fact 
that a nation has resources does not 
help if those resources are undeveloped 
and unavailable. If modern war em- 
phasizes any one thing above another, 
it is that resources of all kinds must 
be promptly available and organized. 

84 



PAST NATIONAL POLICY 

Mere numbers, untrained, unorgan- 
ized and unequipped, mean little; no 
wolf was ever frightened by the size 
of a flock of sheep. 

As one considers the conduct of our 
various wars from the standpoint of 
military efficiency and economy in life 
and treasure, there is but one con- 
clusion possible, and that is that our 
lack of system has been not only 
unduly expensive from every stand- 
point but that it has led to great pro- 
longation of war, unnecessary loss of 
life and treasure, and consequent inter- 
ference with the development of the 
country. In some instances that lack 
of organization has resulted in failure 
to attain the object sought. 

In the Revolutionary War, Wash- 
ington stands out conspicuously as 
the great coordinating, dominant fig- 

85 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

ure, and the more one studies the 
conduct of that war the more he is 
impressed by the debt we owe to 
Washington. His sound judgment, 
able mihtary leadership, and, above 
all, his patience and persistence, cou- 
pled with infinite tact, made it possible 
for him to retain the confidence of 
Congress and the people to an unusual 
extent and to hold together the poorly 
equipped and hastily assembled raw 
levies which formed the bulk of the 
Revolutionary armies. 



86 



CHAPTER IV 

Lessons or the Revolution 

"Against stupidity the very gods / 
themselves contend in vain." — Schil- 
ler. 

The causes leading to the Revolu- 
tion had produced such effect that, as 
early as 1774, several of the Colonies 
began preparations for war with Eng- 
land, and a Provisional Congress was 
convened in Massachusetts, with John 
Hancock as president. This Congress 
appointed officers and adopted organi- 
zation for the militia and made certain 
arrangements for the collections of sup- 
plies, equipment and provisions. The 
royal governor of the colony attempted 

87 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

to prevent the assembly of this Con- 
gress, but was unsuccessful. 

In the following year a second Con- 
gress assembled and appointed a 
Committee of Safety, with authority 
to raise and support a military force 
to resist the Acts of Parliament. 
Under this authority a considerable 
force of militia was raised, part of it 
called Minute Men, or troops bound 
to hold themselves in readiness for 
instant service. This was the condi- 
tion of affairs when the conflicts 
occurred at Lexington and Concord. 
A few days later, April 22nd, steps 
were taken formally to organize for 
defense against Great Britain. The 
Congress decided to raise an army of 
30,000 men, and immediately to enroll 
13,600 men within the limits of Massa- 
chusetts, trusting that the balance 

88 



THE REVOLUTION 

might be supplied by New Hamp- 
shire, Rhode Island and Connecticut. 
Troops were raised by giving to any- 
one who succeeded in enrolling fifty- 
nine men, a captain's commission, and 
a colonel's commission to any man who 
could secure ten such companies. In 
other words, qualifications for com- 
mand rested solely on the ability to 
enroll men. 

It is not difficult to foresee the 
results which must necessarily follow 
under a system based upon such a 
policy. The training of the officers 
and their qualifications for command 
meant little. Of course we must not 
forget that the situation was an 
extremely difficult one. The troops 
had to be raised, there were relatively 
few trained officers in the colony, and 
many who had had previous military 

89 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

experience remained constant in their 
allegiance to Great Britain. Still 
there is no doubt that a larger propor- 
tion of trained officers could have been 
secured had the matter of organization 
been more systematically undertaken. 
The men were courageous, and when 
led by officers of experience and capa- 
city, fighting in a defensive position, 
and not required to maneuver in the 
face of an enemy, rendered brave and 
good service, as at Bunker Hill. The 
Continental Army, when Washington 
assumed command, consisted of a mass 
of raw levies, generally speaking, 
under incompetent officers — levies 
composed of men who had no idea of 
remaining throughout the war and 
undergoing thorough training. 

There were many things outside the 
condition of the army itself which led 

90 



THE REVOLUTION 

to great embarrassment. The action 
at Lexington took place three weeks 
before the assembhng of the Second 
Continental Congress, and compelled 
that body to assume immediately the 
functions of civil government, but as 
it had no authority to levy taxes or 
provide a revenue, it could only issue 
Bills of Credit. The power to create 
and support armies was crippled by a 
financial system which was based 
wholly upon the faith of the people in 
ultimate success. If the Congress 
had had the power to levy taxes and 
raise a revenue, the war would have 
been much shorter and its conduct 
more vigorous. Moreover, the Con- 
gress was vested with both executive 
and legislative power and there was 
consequently a lack of the balance and 
adjustment which exists where these 

91 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

functions are distinct and separate. 
The country was dependent for its 
military legislation upon the decisions 
of a group of citizens wholly without 
instruction in military matters, and 
influenced by general fear of a stand- 
ing army. Washington's correspond- 
ence indicates very clearly the embar- 
rassments and the difficulties of the 
situation. 

The strength of the army at the 
time of Washington's assignment to 
command was about 17,000 men, all 
of them under short enlistment. Much 
had to be accomplished. It was abso- 
lutely essential to organize a force 
which would owe its allegiance to the 
United Colonies, and in June, with 
this end in view, Congress authorized 
the raising of ten companies of rifle- 
men in Pennsylvania, Maryland and 

92 



THE REVOLUTION 

Virginia, with a term of enlistment of 
one year. This was the nucleus of 
the army which finally achieved Amer- 
ican independence. During the year 
both infantry and artillery were added. 
The enlistments were still for a short 
period, and did not extend beyond the 
end of the following year. The terms 
of enlistment of the troops thereby 
enrolled mostly expired at or near the 
end of 1775. As it was necessary 
promptly to raise troops to replace 
them and to add to those already 
enrolled. Congress decided to raise 
twenty-six regiments: sixteen in Mas- 
sachusetts, five in Connecticut, two in 
Rhode Island, and three in New 
Hampshire. Washington was author- 
ized to appoint the officers. This 
resulted in a condition to which Wash- 
ington refers in various letters. 

93 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

On November 11, 1775, he writes as 
follows : 

" The trouble I have in the arrange- 
ment of the army is really inconceiv- 
able. Many of the officers sent in 
their names to serve in expectation of 
promotion; others stood aloof to see 
what advantage they could make for 
themselves, while a number, who have 
declined, have again sent in their names 
to serve. So great has the confusion 
arising from these and many other 
perplexing circumstances been that I 
found it absolutely impossible to fix 
this very interesting business exactly 
on the plan resolved on in the con- 
ference, though I have kept up to the 
spirit of it as near as the nature and 
necessity of the case would permit. 

" The difficulty with the soldiers is 
as great, indeed, more so, if possible, 

94 



THE REVOLUTION 

than with the officers. They will not 
enlist until they know their colonel, 
lieutenant-colonel, major, and captain, 
so that it was necessary to fix the offi- 
cers the first thing, which is, at last, in 
some manner done, and I have given 
out enlisting orders." 

And on November 28th he con- 
tinues : 

" The number enlisted since my last 
is two thousand five hundred and forty 
men. I am sorry to be necessitated to 
mention to you the egregious want of 
public spirit which reigns here. 
Instead of pressing to be engaged in 
the cause of their country, which I 
vainly flattered myself would be the 
case, I find we are likely to be deserted 
in a most critical time. Those that 
have enlisted must have a furlough, 
which I have been obliged to grant to 

95 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

fifty at a time, from each regiment. 
The Connecticut troops, upon whom I 
reckoned, are as backward, indeed, if 
possible, more so than the people of 
this colony. Our situation is truly 
alarming, and of this General Howe 
is well apprised, it being the common 
topic of conversation when the people 
left Boston last Friday. No doubt 
when he is reinforced he will avail him- 
self of the information." 

And in a private letter a little later, 
he describes conditions in the following 
words : 

" Such a dearth of public spirit and 
such want of virtue, such stock- jobbing 
and fertility in all the low arts to 
obtain advantages of one kind or 
another in this great change of mili- 
tary arrangement I never saw before, 
and pray God's mercy that I may 

96 



THE REVOLUTION 

never be witness to again. What will 
be the end of these maneuvers is 
beyond my scan. I tremble at the 
prospect. We have been till this time 
enlisting about three thousand five 
hundred men. To engage these I 
have been obliged to allow furloughs 
as far as fifty men to a regiment, and 
the officers, I am persuaded, indulge 
as many more. The Connecticut 
troops will not be prevailed upon to 
stay longer than their term, saving 
those who have enlisted for the next 
campaign, and are mostly on furlough; 
and such a mercenary spirit pervades, 
the whole that I should not be at all 
surprised at any disaster that may 
happen. In short, after the last of 
this month our lines will be so weak- 
ened that the Minute Men and militia 
must be called in for their defense, 

97 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

and these being under no kind of gov- 
ernment themselves, will destroy the 
little subordination I have been labor- 
ing to establish, and run me into one 
evil while I am endeavoring to avoid 
another ; but the lesser must be chosen. 

These letters point out very plainly 
the conditions which existed. Another 
important thing to remember is that 
these occurrences took place during a 
period when our forefathers were 
struggling for independence, when, as 
we were taught in school, a spirit of 
patriotism and self-sacrifice stirred the 
country. The foregoing extracts from 
Washington's letters show the real sit- 
uation. It was extremely difficult to 
secure troops for the armed forces. 
Men came only for short periods of 
time, and insisted upon the election of 
their officers. Discipline was poor, and 

98 



THE REVOLUTION 

such as there was, was difficult of 
enforcement. In fact, the situation was 
more or less one of military chaos, and 
it was only Washington's remarkable 
personality that made it possible to hold 
together these discordant elements in 
the form of a fighting force. 

We soon went to the bounty, small 
at first, but gradually increased. In 
1778 freedom was offered by Rhode 
Island to negroes if they would enlist. 
The difficulty in increasing the Con- 
tinental forces augmented instead of 
diminished from year to year. Wash- 
ington was twice empowered with dic- 
tatorial powers. The colonial assem- 
bhes singly and collectively made 
special efforts to secure troops but 
there seems to have been lacking a 
sense of individual responsibility for 
soldier service and the result was that 

99 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

our greatest force was in 1776, when 
we had 89,000 troops, 47,000 Con- 
tinentals, 42,000 mihtia. The Con- 
tinentals were really short service 
troops. From this year on the strength 
of the American force steadily de- 
creased until, in 1781, the force was 
only a trifle over 29,400 men. At no 
time during the war did Washington 
have an effective force of 20,000 men 
in line, notwithstanding the fact that 
nearly 400,000 men were enrolled dur- 
ing the war. 

One of the principal causes of diffi- 
culty during the war was that control 
of military matters rested with the 
Continental Congress, and that body 
was jealous of a standing army, knew 
little of military matters, and was 
inclined to make economies which 
resulted in vast expenditures through 

100 



THE REVOLUTION 

extending the war and rendering 
unavailing such expenditures as had 
previously been made. Washington 
did everything a man could do in his 
position, and he accomplished miracles. 
We were fortunate in this war in 
receiving at a critical time the invalu- 
able assistance of France, and from the 
further fact that the contention of the 
Colonies was supported by a strong 
party in England. The difficulties 
which Washington encountered can 
best be appreciated by soldiers who 
realize what it means to make new 
armies practically every year. Large 
forces of militia were called in from 
time to time but they were almost 
useless. Washington's opinion of men 
raised in this manner without training 
and without discipline, was expressed 
as follows; 

101 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

" To place any dependence upon 
militia is assuredly resting upon a 
broken staff. Men just dragged from 
the tender scenes of domestic life, 
unaccustomed to the din of arms, 
totally unacquainted with every kind 
of military skill (which is followed by 
want of confidence in themselves when 
opposed by troops regularly trained, 
disciplined, and appointed, superior in 
knowledge and superior in arms) are 
timid and ready to fly from their own 
shadows. 

" Relaxed and unfit as our rules and 
regulations of war are for the govern- 
ment of an army, the militia (these 
properly so called, for of these we have 
two sorts, the six-months men and 
those sent in as a temporary aid) do 
not think themselves subject to them, 
and therefore take liberties which the 

102 



THE REVOLUTION 

soldier is punished for. This creates 
jealousy, jealousy begets dissatisfac- 
tion, and this by degrees ripens into 
mutiny, keeping the whole army in a 
confused and disordered state, render- 
ing the time of those who wish to see 
regularity and good order prevail more 
unhappy than words can describe. 
Besides this, such repeated changes 
take place that all arrangement is set 
at naught and the constant fluctuation 
of things deranges every plan as fast 
as it is adopted. 

" Those, sir. Congress may be as- 
sured, are but a small part of the 
inconveniences which might be enumer- 
ated and attributed to militia, but there 
is one that merits particular attention, 
and that is the expense. Certain I am 
that it would be cheaper to keep 50,000 
or 100,000 in constant pay than to 

103 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

depend upon half the number and 
supply the other half occasionally by 
militia. The time the latter are in pay 
before and after they are in camp, 
assembling and marching, the waste of 
ammunition, the consumption of stores, 
which in spite of every resolution or 
requisition of Congress, they must be 
furnished with or sent home, added to 
other incidental expenses consequent 
upon their coming and conduct in 
camp, surpass all idea and destroy 
every kind of regularity and economy 
which you could establish among fixed 
and settled troops, and will, in my 
opinion prove, if the scheme is adhered 
to, the ruin of our cause." 

During the war various reorganiza- 
tions took place; the conditions were 
somewhat improved through the grad- 
ual acquirement of a small nucleus of 

104 



THE REVOLUTION 

trained officers; but the old vicious con- 
ditions concerning the method of 
raising men, short terms of enhstments, 
rather than enhstments for the war, 
bounties, desertions, continued. Boun- 
ties grew from small sums to sums 
which, in those days, were small for- 
tunes and the foundation was laid for 
a procedure which was most vicious 
and tended to corrupt the patriotism 
of the nation: namely, the bounty 
system, or the buying of men to dis- 
charge their military obligations to the 
nation. 

Washington's opinion of our military 
policy is found in a letter to the 
president of Congress, August 20, 
1780: 

" Had we formed a permanent army 
in the beginning, which, by the con- 
tinuance of the same men in service, 

105 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

had been capable of discipline, we 
never should have had to retreat with 
a handful of men across the Delaware 
in 1776, trembling for the fate of 
America, which nothing but the infatu- 
ation of the enemy could have saved; 
we should not have remained all the 
succeeding winter at their mercy, with 
sometimes scarcely a sufficient body 
of men to mount the ordinary guards, 
liable at every moment to be dissipated, 
if they had only thought proper to 
march against us; we should not have 
been under the necessity of fighting 
Brandy wine, with an unequal number 
of raw troops, and afterwards of seeing 
Philadelphia fall a prey to a victorious 
army; we should not have been at 
Valley Forge with less than half the 
force of the enemy, destitute of every- 
thing, in a situation neither to resist 

106 



THE REVOLUTION 

nor to retire; we should not have seen 
New York left with a handful of men, 
yet an overmatch for the main army 
of these States, while the principal part 
of their force was detached for the 
reduction of two of them; we should 
not have found ourselves this spring so 
weak as to be insulted by 5,000 men, 
unable to protect our baggage and 
magazines, their security depending on 
a good countenance and a want of 
enterprise in the enemy; we should not 
have been the greatest part of the war 
inferior to the enemy, indebted for our 
safety to their inactivity, enduring 
frequently the mortification of seeing 
inviting opportunities to ruin them 
pass unimproved for want of a force 
which the country was completely able 
to afford, and of seeing the country 
ravaged, our towns burnt, the inhabi- 

107 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

tants plundered, abused, murdered, 
with impunity from the same cause. 

" Nor have the ill effects been con- 
fined to the military line. A great 
part of the embarrassments in the civil 
departments flow from the same source. 
The derangement of our finances is 
essentially to be ascribed to it. The 
expenses of the war and the paper 
emissions have been greatly multiplied 
by it. We have had a great part of 
the time two sets of men to feed and 
pay — the discharged men going home 
and the levies coming in. This was 
more remarkably the case in 1775 and 
1776. The difficulty and cost of 
engaging men have increased at every 
successive attempt, till among the 
present lines we find there are some 
who have received $150 in specie for 
five months' service, while our officers 

108 



THE REVOLUTION 

are reduced to the disagreeable neces- 
sity of performing the duties of drill 
sergeants to them, with this mortifying 
reflection annexed to the business, that 
by the time they have taught these 
men the rudiments of a soldier's duty 
their services will have expired and 
the work recommenced with a new set. 
The consumption of provisions, arms, 
accouterments, and stores of every kind 
has been doubled in spite of every pre- 
caution I could use, not only from 
the cause just mentioned, but from 
the carelessness and licentiousness inci- 
dent to militia and irregular troops. 
Our discipline also has been much hurt, 
if not ruined, by such constant changes. 
The frequent calls upon the militia 
have interrupted the cultivation of the 
land, and of course have lessened the 
quantity of its produce, occasioned a 

109 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

scarcity, and enhanced the prices. In 
an army so unstable as ours order and 
economy have been impracticable. No 
person who has been a close observer of 
the progress of our affairs can doubt 
that our currency has depreciated with- 
out comparison more rapidly from the 
system of short enlistments than it 
would have done otherwise. 

" There is every reason to believe 
that the war has been protracted on 
this account. Our opposition being 
less, the successes of the enemy have 
been greater. The fluctuation of the 
army kept alive their hopes, and at 
every period of the dissolution of a 
considerable part of it they have 
flattered themselves with some decisive 
advantages. Had we kept a perma- 
nent army on foot the enemy could 
have had nothing to hope for, and 

110 



THE REVOLUTION 

would in all probability have listened 
to terms long since." 

There is no reason to believe that 
the Washington opinions, as expressed, 
underwent any essential change. War 
drew its weary length along, with con- 
stantly changing personnel and small 
and ineffective commands. The year 
of 1781 was marked by a mutiny of 
troops of the Pennsylvania line. Our 
regular officers had become skilled and 
able and were making the best pos- 
sible use of the inferior troops fur- 
nished them. Following the junction 
of the French and American troops 
came the operations against Yorktown 
and the capture of Cornwallis. This 
was the last battle of the Revolution. 
The United States had employed dur- 
ing the war 395,858 troops. Their 
forces were strongest in 1776. The 

111 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

British forces at the outbreak of the 
war numbered 20,121, while at the 
end they amounted to 42,075. The 
mihtary events which had a strong 
bearing upon the expulsion of the 
British were, first, the capture of 
Burgoyne, and, secondly, that of Corn- 
wallis, an event which was made pos- 
sible only by the strong cooperation 
of the French forces on sea and land. 
The prosecution of the war by the 
British had not been at any time 
especially vigorous. 

The lack of centralized power was 
felt throughout the Revolution, and 
we have the curious picture of an alli- 
ance of states engaged in war viewing 
with suspicion a standing army, and 
yet on two occasions forced to give to 
the commander of these forces dicta- 
torial power. Embarrassing complica- 

112 



THE REVOLUTION 

tions occurred from the tendency to 
the exercise of power by the states. 
They assumed at critical moments a 
quasi-independent attitude, as illus- 
trated by the action of Governor 
Thomas Jefferson in detaining the 
Virginia militia for home defense 
when it was urgently required by 
General Greene; and by the action of 
the people of Boston in fitting out 
(without consulting the commander- 
in-chief) an independent military 
expedition for operation against the 
British in Maine. 

In April, 1812, the governor of 
Massachusetts denied the right of Con- 
gress or the president to determine 
when conditions justified the calling out 
of the militia, and claimed that this 
right is vested in the commanders-in- 
chief of militia of the various states — 

113 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

in other words, in the governors. At 
the same time Connecticut made sub- 
stantially the same claim. 

A little later in the same year, 
Vermont declared that the military 
strength and resources of the state 
must be reserved for its own defense 
and protection exclusively, and in the 
following year the same state refused 
to permit the militia to go to General 
Macomb's support. In fact, the whole 
structure was loosely jointed and could 
not have resisted a strong and well- 
organized attack. 

Taking it as a whole, however, and 
considering the lack of centralized 
power, ignorance of the legislative and 
executive body in all matters mihtary, 
the depreciation of currency, and that 
consciousness which must have existed 
among the troops of a lack of strong 

114 



THE REVOLUTION 

government, there was less trouble 
than might have been expected. 
Mutiny — although causes for it in 
the way of shortage of pay and 
clothing often existed — seldom oc- 
curred. The record of the Continental 
troops, one might say " the regular 
troops," was remarkably good. We 
had the material for both officers and 
men, but we lacked a strong govern- 
ment, organization and system. In 
other words, there was a weak military 
policy and no appreciation of the mil- 
itary needs of the country, if the war 
was to have been conducted vigor- 
ously and with the minimum loss of 
life and expenditure of treasure. 

During the revolutionary war the 
states formed a very loose confederacy, 
lacking most of the elements of 
strength which come from national re- 

115 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

sources properly mobilized and directed 
by a central authority. The Conti- 
nental Congress exercised only a lim- 
ited measure of control and toward 
the end of the war it was, to a large 
extent, advisory. Congress lacked the 
power to utilize and make available 
the country's military resources. The 
result was that at no time during the 
revolution was the full strength of the 
new-born nation brought to bear, and 
not only was there lack of a strong 
coordinating authority, but the whole 
military system was fatally defective. 
It represented the folly of depending 
upon troops enlisted for short periods, 
untrained, poorly organized, with a 
constantly changing enlisted personnel. 
The unnecessary sacrifice of life and 
expenditure of treasure incident to this 
system and adherence to it, has fol- 

116 



THE REVOLUTION 

lowed through all our wars, as the table 
on the following page indicates. 

As a result of this pernicious system 
of frequent and short enlistments, fol- 
lowed naturally a pension system 
involving tremendous expense, only a 
small portion of which would have been 
necessary had we had a sound military 
policy. 

The policy of short enlistments, of 
enrolling men hastily, not only cost us 
unnecessarily in life and treasure, but 
at times exercised a dangerous influence 
upon military operations. Arnold was 
forced to deliver an assault upon 
Quebec because of the approaching 
expiration of the enlistments of a large 
portion of his troops. Montgomery 
was killed, Arnold wounded, and a 
large part of the force killed, wounded, 
or taken prisoners. 

117 



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(118) 



THE REVOLUTION 

Washington repeatedly refers to the 
loss of troops and constant change of 
personnel incident to this system of 
short enlistments. 

Briefly, these are the lessons of the 
war: That a confederation of states, 
without a strong central government 
under the direction of citizens without 
experience in military matters and 
under conditions which permit each 
state to raise, arm and equip troops, is 
an exceedingly weak form of govern- 
ment for the prosecution of war; that 
the war resources of a nation can only 
be employed to the greatest advantage 
when used as a national force under 
national control and direction; that 
undisciplined and raw levies cannot 
meet disciplined troops with any hope 
of success; that voluntary enlistments 
based on patriotism and the bounty 

119 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

cannot be relied upon to supply men 
for the army during a prolonged war, 
but that men should be enlisted for 
the period of the war; and, finally, 
that we should turn to the policy of 
general militar}^ training with a fixed 
period of obligation for all able-bodied 
men. 

It is only by such a system that 
we shall be able quickly, smoothly and 
effectually to mobilize our forces for 
war. Great changes have occurred 
in the organization, equipment and 
preparedness of our possible antagon- 
ists, and whatever system we have 
must be one which permits prompt 
mobilization of trained men. It must 
be one which enables us to know with 
certainty and exactness what our 
resources in men are, just when they 
will be available, and what their quali- 

120 



THE REVOLUTION 

fications are. This is not possible 
under either a volunteer system or 
under a system of draft, initiated after 
war has commenced. 



121 



chapter v 
Seventy Years of Inefficiency 

"It is better to be ready for war 
and not have it than to have war and 
not be ready for it.'* — L. W. 

The close of the Revolutionary War 
found the young nation confronted 
with many grave questions, among 
them the question of a proper military 
establishment. This was an object of 
special solicitation on the part of 
Washington, and he recommended in 
strong language the thorough train- 
ing of the militia, their proper arming 
and equipment. By militia he meant 
the militia which includes all men from 
eighteen to forty-five years of age. 
The Continental Army was disbanded, 

122 



YEARS OF INEFFICIENCY 

excepting one battery of artillery 
known as the Alexander Hamilton Bat- 
tery, a battery which still exists in our 
service. Although the finances of the 
nation were exhausted, an attempt 
was made to establish a small regular 
establishment, a mixed regiment of 
infantry and artillery, ridiculously 
inadequate, of course. Later that 
regiment was expanded a little into 
a Legionary Corps consisting of some 
2,040 noncommissioned officers and 
privates. 

Feeble, half-hearted measures in the 
direction of an organization of a 
small military force followed during 
the next few years. In 1789 the War 
Department was organized. In 1790 
there was another reorganization of 
the army. This organization fixed the 
standard at 1,216 noncommissioned 

123 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

officers and privates — not a formid- 
able force. Various Indian campaigns 
indicated the necessity of a stronger 
military establishment, and in 1791 
there was a further reorganization 
which resulted in the addition of 
another regiment. Two general offi- 
cers were authorized. 

St. Clair's defeat emphasized the 
necessity of a still further increase in 
military establishment, as well as the 
inadvisability of depending upon un- 
trained mihtia. This reorganization 
resulted in the filling up of the then 
existing military establishment to full 
strength and the addition of three 
regiments of infantry and certain 
minor additions in field and staff offi- 
cers. About this time the legionary 
idea, which originated with Baron von 
Steuben, was applied to the organiza- 

124 



YEARS OF INEFFICIENCY 

tion of the regular army, and was pro- 
posed for the militia. The Legion 
was really a small, complete army in 
itself, a complete fighting unit, com- 
posed of the different arms. General 
Knox, then secretary of war, strongly 
approved the idea for the army, and 
recommended its extension to include 
all physically and mentally fit men 
from eighteen to sixty years of age, 
with the idea of building up a trained 
citizen soldiery. 

The legionary organization for the 
regular estabhshment was adopted, 
although unfortunately the general 
plan proposed by General Knox, to 
divide and classify the entire male 
population between eighteen and sixty, 
was not adopted. In 1795-7 there 
was further reorganization, made 
necessary by increasing calls for troops 

125 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

in connection with Indian disturbances 
and the Whiskey Rebellion in Penn- 
sylvania in August, 1794. In 1798 
the president was authorized to organ- 
ize a provisional army in case of the 
existence of war or an invasion of our 
territory, or imminent danger. This 
Provincial Army was to consist of 
10,000 noncommissioned officers and 
men, to be enlisted for a period of 
three years. The force was to be offi- 
cered by the president. Washington 
was appointed commander-in-chief, 
with the rank of lieutenant-general. 
This army was never called into 
being. Further reorganization in 1802 
resulted in a further reduction in the 
strength of the army. In 1805 a real 
step forward was taken through the 
establishment of the Military Acad- 
emy at West Point. Alexander 

126 



YEARS OF INEFFICIENCY 

Hamilton was the moving force 
behind the establishment of this splen- 
did institution. Washington strongly- 
approved, and three days before his 
death he wrote as follows to Hamilton: 

" The establishment of an institu- 
tion of this kind on a respectable and 
extensive basis has ever been consid- 
ered by me an object of primary 
importance to this country, and while 
I was in the chair of government I 
omitted no proper opportunity of 
recommending it in my public speeches 
and otherwise to the attention of the 
Legislature." 

McHenry, the Secretary of War, 
urged the establishment of the Acad- 
emy in the following words: 

" It cannot be forgotten that in our 
Revolutionary War it was not till 
after several years' practice in arms, 

127 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

and the extension of the periods for 
which our soldiers were at first 
enhsted, that we found them at all 
qualified to meet on the field of battle 
those to whom they were opposed. 
The occasional brilliant and justly- 
celebrated acts of some of our militia 
during that eventful period detract 
nothing from this dear-bought truth. 
" The great man who conducted the 
war of our Revolution was continually 
compelled to conform his conduct to 
the circumstances growing out of the 
experimental lessons just mentioned. 
What was the secret of his conduct? 
Must it be told? It may, and without 
exciting a blush or an uneasy sensa- 
tion in any of his surviving companies 
in arms. He had an army of men, but 
he had few officers or soldiers in that 
army." 

128 



YEARS OF INEFFICIENCY 

The Academy provided for a force 
of only twenty officers and cadets, and 
its purpose was to provide a corps of 
engineers. Since the day of its foun- 
dation it has been the strong prop 
of our mihtary estabhshment. 

There were further sporadic changes 
in the composition of the army, and 
in 1808 it was increased by some five 
regiments of infantry, a regiment of 
riflemen, a regiment of hght artillery, 
and one regiment of light dragoons, 
enlisted for a period of five years. 
This was the result, principally, of the 
increasing probability of war with 
Great Britain. In March, 1812, an 
attempt was made to organize a Quar- 
termaster's Department, Commissary 
Department, Ordnance Department, 
and during this year an increase was 
authorized in the number of cadets at 

129 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

the Military Academy. Under this 
act, the maximum number of cadets 
was fixed at 250. 

On June 18, 1812, war was declared 
against Great Britain, Our regular 
army had been greatly increased 
immediately preceding the outbreak 
of the war, and now consisted of 
some 36,700 men on paper. This 
number was rapidly increased, from 
time to time, by calling in volunteers 
for militia. We had apparently 
learned very little from the lessons 
of the Revolution. The war, taken 
as a whole, was a series of disasters 
and reverses on land, many of them 
highly discreditable in character. Our 
record on sea was much better, and 
we gained many notable successes. 
The men of the fleet and on the indi- 
vidual ships of war were better trained 

130 



YEARS OF INEFFICIENCY 

and better disciplined than those of 
the land forces. The gallant action at 
Lundy's Lane, where there was a 
strong nucleus of regulars, and minor 
successes on the Thames, formed the 
bulk of our creditable actions on land 
during the period of the war. It 
should be remembered, in commenting 
upon the relative efficiency of the army 
and navy, that Congress has never 
delegated to the states the power to 
raise and maintain a navy. In 1813 
there was a further increase in the 
strength of the regular army by 
twenty regiments, enlisted for a year, 
and some increases in the staff. There 
was still a general failure to appre- 
ciate the necessity of providing an 
adequate, well - organized military 
establishment. We put some 527,000 
men into the war. The British reg- 

131 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

ular force in this country at no time 
exceeded 16,800. 

Generally speaking, our campaigns 
against Canada were hopelessly in- 
effective. In 1814 Commodore Mc- 
Donough's brilliant victory on Lake 
Champlain terminated an advance 
which, had it not been for the naval 
successes, might have reached New 
York and cut oiF New England from 
the rest of the country. During this 
war, as in the Revolution, the power 
of a state government to interfere with 
military operations was illustrated by 
the action of the governor of Vermont 
in refusing to send militia when Gen- 
eral Macomb called for aid. This war 
was signalized by the abandonment of 
our capital to a force about sixty per 
cent that of the defenders. It is true 
that most of the defenders were with- 

132 



YEARS OF INEFFICIENCY 

out training or discipline. Only about 
1,500 of the British force of 3,500 were 
engaged. Our troops abandoned the 
capital with a loss of eight killed and 
eleven wounded. 

The battle of New Orleans was one 
of the most remarkable victories re- 
corded in our military history. It was 
fought tw^o weeks after peace had been 
signed at Ghent. Our success was not 
without the element of good fortune. 
The British attack was a frontal attack 
without cover, in the face of men 
highly trained in the use of the rifle. 
While our troops are entitled to a high 
degree of credit, the reports do not 
bring out the fact, however, that our 
success was largely influenced by the 
delay of Colonel Thornton's highly 
successful attack on the Americans on 
the west bank. Had his assault been 

133 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

delivered a little earlier, the American 
line on the other side of the river would 
have been untenable. While the battle 
had no influence in determining peace, 
it served as somewhat of a consolation 
for a long series of disasters on land. 

The navy's record in the war was 
excellent. It did all that a small force 
could have done. It aided in the 
victory of the Thames, saved the army 
from destruction at Plattsburg, and at 
Norfolk, Bladensburg, Baltimore and 
New Orleans rendered splendid serv- 
ice; but at the end of the war Great 
Britain controlled the sea. 

The entire War of 1812 was but 
another illustration of the unwisdom of 
our general policy. No well-thought- 
out organization in time of peace — no 
sound policy in the way of preparation 
— failure to do in time of peace those 

134 



YEARS OF INEFFICIENCY 

things which cannot be done in time of 
war. Taking the war as a whole, it was 
disastrous and highly discreditable to us 
on land. The blunders were those of 
the Revolution in even a more aggra- 
vated form and with less excuse, because 
under the Constitution the government 
did have the authority to bring into 
play the entire financial and military 
resources of the nation. As Upton 
states: "Five thousand men (Brit- 
ish) for the period of two years 
brought war and devastation into our 
territory and successfully withstood 
the misapplied power of seven millions 
of people." 

Shortly after the conclusion of the 
war, the army was again reduced and 
we returned with more or less prompt- 
ness to the old haphazard policy. In 
1821 another plan of reorganization 

135 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

was presented. This plan contem- 
plated the reduction of the army to 
6,000 enlisted men and its maintenance 
as a group of skeletonized organiza- 
tions. It is interesting to note, in this 
connection, that Mr. Calhoun, in pre- 
senting his plan, made the following 
statements : 

'* To give such an organization, the 
leading principles in its formation 
ought to be, that at the commence- 
ment of hostilities there should be 
nothing either to new model or to 
create. The only difference, conse- 
quently, between the peace and the 
war formation of the army ought to 
be in the increased magnitude of the 
latter, and the only change in passing 
from the former to the latter should 
consist in giving to it the augmenta- 
tion which will then be necessary." 

136 



YEARS OF INEFFICIENCY 

"It is thus, and thus only, the dan- 
gerous transition from peace to war 
may be made without confusion or 
disorder, and the weakness and danger 
which otherwise would be inevitable, be 
avoided. Two consequences result from 
this principle: First, the organization 
of the staff in a peace establishment 
ought to be such that every branch 
of it should be completely formed, 
with such extension as the number of 
troops and posts occupied may render 
necessary; and, secondly, that the 
organization of the line ought as far 
as practicable, to be such that in pass- 
ing from the peace to the war forma- 
tion, the force may be sufficiently 
augmented without adding new regi- 
ments or battalions, thus raising the 
army, on the basis of the peace estab- 
lishment, instead of creating a new 

137 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

army to be added to the old, as at the 
commencement of the late war." 

Fortunate, indeed, would we have 
been had this policy been adopted, 
provided we had a reserve of trained 
men to bring the organization to war 
strength. But it was not. At that 
time the possibility of sudden invasion 
was remote. Most of our people were 
familiar with the use of the rifle. 
There was no possibility of such con- 
centration against us as during recent 
years. The proposed organization 
related wholly to the regular army, 
and did not provide for the organiza- 
tion of that great bulk of our force 
which must always come from the 
people themselves, who, within certain 
age limitations, must be trained, organ- 
ized and equipped in time of peace 
if they are to be effective in war. 

138 



YEARS OF INEFFICIENCY 

Following the War of 1812 came a 
series of Indian wars, some of them 
of considerable magnitude. The Sem- 
inole War, the Black Hawk War, 
the Florida War, were conducted with 
various modifications of the military 
establishment, but, generally speaking, 
the old policy was followed. Raw 
troops were raised to meet each 
emergency, with resulting tremendous 
expenditures of money, great loss of 
life and a high degree of inefficiency. 
On the heels of the Florida War 
came the Creek campaign. Rela- 
tively large numbers of troops were 
engaged in these campaigns. In the 
Creek campaign, for instance, nearly 
12,000 troops were employed. In the 
three wars — the Florida War, the 
Creek, and the Cherokee War — we 
called into service the militia to the 

139 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

number of 48,152. To these should be 
added 12,539 regulars, making our total 
force 60,691 engaged in these little 
campaigns. In 1837 there was a slight 
increase in the regular army, and some 
increase in the staff corps, but there 
was no legislation looking to the train- 
ing, disciplining and equipping under 
federal direction of the great body 
of our men known as the militia. 

In 1842, immediately after the ces- 
sation of hostilities incident to the 
Florida campaign, the army was 
reduced from 12,500 to 8,500. The 
lessons taught by these Indian wars 
were the lessons of the Revolution and 
the War of 1812, namely, that organi- 
zation and preparation for war must 
be made in time of peace, and that 
undisciplined and untrained troops, 
poorly organized, are the most expen- 

140 



YEARS OF INEFFICIENCY 

sive weapons a nation can employ in 
war. There was needless sacrifice of 
life, undue prolongation of the war, 
tremendous and unnecessary expense. 
Or, as Upton sums it up, the lessons 
taught by this war are: 

"First: That its expense was 
tripled, if not quadrupled, by that 
feature of the law of 1821 which gave 
the president, in times of emergency, 
no discretion to increase the enUsted 
men of the army. 

" Second: That, as in every previ- 
ous war, after successfully employing 
for short periods of service, militia 
and volunteers, and exhausting their 
enthusiasm. Congress found it more 
humane and economical to continue 
hostilities with regular troops, enlisted 
for the period of five years. 

" Third: That for want of a well- 
141 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY. 

defined peace organization, a nation 
of 17,000,000 of people contended for 
seven years with 1,200 warriors, and 
finally closed the struggle without 
accomplishing the forcible emigration 
of the Indians, which was the original 
and sole cause of the war. 

" Without dwelling on the needless 
sacrifice of life, these hard lessons 
would have been cheaply learned, 
could Congress, at the end of the con- 
flict, have appreciated the value of 
expansive organization. By with- 
holding from the president authority 
to add a few enlisted men to the army, 
it committed the same great error as 
in 1821. We shall see that this error 
more than doubled the cost and length 
of another war, which despite the mis- 
takes of military legislation, was soon 
to add to the luster of our arms." 

142 



YEARS OF INEFFICIENCY 

The Mexican War furnished the 
next opportunity to illustrate what 
the United States had learned from 
the conduct of previous wars. A 
close study of this campaign discloses 
the fact that so far as the methods 
and system are concerned, little or 
nothing had been learned; and 
although the government had ample 
warning of the probabilities of war, 
little or no preparation had been made 
for it. We were opposed by an enemy 
inferior both in organization and 
resources; we had a small but good 
nucleus of regular troops. The war 
was sufficiently remote from centres of 
influence to give our officers a better 
opportunity than usual to train and 
discipline the new levies which were 
sent them. Moreover, we were singu- 
larly fortunate in having as com- 

143 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

manders and subordinates an unusu- 
ally able group of officers, many of 
whom became the great commanders 
of the Civil War. The foregoing and 
other circumstances resulted in the 
conduct of the war being effective, 
one might almost say, brilliant. 

Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, 
Monterey, Buena Vista, on one line 
of operations, and Vera Cruz, Cerro 
Gordo, Contreras, Churubusco and El 
Molino del Rey, on the other, tell the 
story of the war. It was, taken as 
a whole, our most successful and best 
conducted war ; but in remembering this 
success, we must not forget that the 
system employed was as defective as 
in previous wars, and that the success 
that we had was not due to the sys- 
tem, but was attained in spite of it. 

The regular army had been reduced 
144 



YEARS OF INEFFICIENCY 

to an insignificant force in numbers — 
a mere nucleus — and large numbers 
of volunteers had to be called, result- 
ing in huge increase in annual expend- 
itures during the war. There was one 
hopeful change, however, and that 
was the reduction in the proportion 
of militia used. This was not due to 
the experience of the past, but princi- 
pally because the militia was not avail- 
able for service outside the United 
States. In the War of 1812 the force 
of volunteers serving for twelve or 
more months was only twelve per cent 
of the total number of troops em- 
ployed. In the Mexican War it was 
approximately eighty-eight per cent. 
In the War of 1812 a large force of 
militia and Aintrained volunteers was 
practically baffled by a force of 5,000 
of the enemy's regulars. In the 

145 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

Mexican War a force of well-disci- 
plined volunteers with a nucleus of 
regulars overthrew an army several 
times their number. In other words, 
in the Mexican War we had a good 
nucleus of regular troops and we had 
time to develop our volunteers into 
trained and reasonably well-disciplined 
soldiers, and we used small numbers 
of militia. What we did was not due 
so much to any idea of abandoning 
the old system with its free use of 
militia, as it was to the fact that we 
had to conduct a war where the militia 
could not be used because of the con- 
stitutional limitation upon its employ- 
ment outside the United States. 

In this war the system of short 
enlistments jeopardized the success of 
military operations. Many of Scott's 
troops were enlisted under conditions 

146 



YEARS OF INEFFICIENCY 

which gave them the option of con- 
tinuing in service or taking their dis- 
charge at the end of the year. On 
reaching Pueblo, he discovered that 
seven of his eleven regiments had 
decided to terminate their services at 
the conclusion of the year. Conse- 
quently he was stripped of a large 
portion of his effective troops; had the 
Mexican forces been capable of further 
activities disaster would certainly have 
resulted. 

We employed in the Mexican War 
approximately 104,000 troops of all 
arms, of whom only 12,000 were mili- 
tia — twelve per cent of militia against 
approximately eighty-eight per cent in 
the War of 1812. 

At the close of the Mexican War 
the army was reduced from 30,890 to 
10,320. There were some minor modi- 

147 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

fications in the organization of our 
regiments, but, generally speaking, 
little change was effected by the 
Mexican War. Discretion was given 
to the president to increase the 
strength of organizations in case of 
emergency, and incident to the trou- 
bles in Utah and along the Texas bor- 
der, the president was authorized to 
accept into service of the United 
States a regiment of Texas volunteers 
and to raise two regiments of mounted 
infantry if required. There was no 
very important change in policy with 
reference to making arrangements for 
possible war. In other words, little 
had been learned from the preceding 
wars, or if learned, had not been put 
into practical application. 



148 



chapter vi 

The Price of Unpreparedness in 
THE Sixties 

"To lead an uninstructed people 
into war, is to throw them away." — 
Confucius, 1^19 B. C, 

According to Upton, at the end of 
1860, with a population of 31,000,000, 
we had in our regular army 16,367. 

That army was scattered along the 
western frontier and over the vast 
areas west of the Mississippi, along 
the Atlantic seacoast and the northern 
border, and, roughly, provided two 
soldiers per mile for guarding the 
frontier; for the area west of the 
Mississippi, one soldier for every 120 
square miles; and for the north west- 

149 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

ern, or the remaining portions of the 
Union, one soldier for every 1,300 
square miles. There was almost no 
well-organized, equipped and trained 
militia. 

This was the general condition when 
South Carolina passed the ordinance 
of secession. That nothing had been 
learned from previous wars and that 
no plan of operations had been 
thought out or adequate stores pre- 
pared for sudden emergency, was indi- 
cated by the confusion and difficulties 
which followed the attempt to organize 
an army. The enlisted personnel oft 
the regular army was scattered over 
the entire area of the country. Prac- 
tically all of the enlisted men remained 
staunch in their adherence to the cause 
of the national government, but con- 
fusion and disorganization resulted in 

150 



IN THE SIXTIES 

those commands which were outside 
the Union lines and filtered back piece- 
meal. The great majority of the offi- 
cers retained their commissions in the 
national service, but many of great 
ability tendered their resignations and 
reported for duty with the forces of 
their states. The conduct of the gov- 
ernors throughout the country largely 
followed party lines. In the south 
there was a general refusal to furnish 
militia for the purpose of the national 
government. Along the border states 
there was a general opposition to fur- 
nishing any of these troops for 
national service. In Delaware a new 
situation arose, as illustrated by the 
proclamation of the government of 
that state in response to the call for 
one regiment of militia: 

" Therefore, I, William Burton, 
151 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

governor of the said State of Dela- 
ware, recommend the formation of 
volunteer companies for the protection 
of the lives and property of the people 
of this state against violence of any 
sort to which they may be exposed. 
For these purposes such companies, 
when formed, will be under the con- 
trol of the state authorities, though 
not subject to be ordered by the 
executive into the United States serv- 
ice, the law not vesting in him such 
authority. They will, however, have 
the option of offering their services to 
the general government for the defense 
of its capital and the support of the 
Constitution and laws of the country." 
-% As a general rule, the governors of 
the states which refused militia, acted 
on their own initiative, and did not 
refer the matter to the state legisla- 

152 



IN THE SIXTIES 

ture. Six states to which an appeal 
was made for the service of militia 
and refused by the governors, after- 
wards furnished 252,000 men to the 
Union cause. This illustrates how 
completely, under the militia system, 
a governor can paralyze the military 
resources of his own state, the people 
of which in large part may be desirous 
of meeting the national demand. 

The story of the militia as a whole 
illustrates the utter folly of depend- 
ing upon any system which leaves the 
control of any portion of the military 
establishment upon which the nation 
must depend in war, in the hands of 
the governor of a state, or of anyone 
else other than the federal authority. 
The entire military force upon which 
the nation is to depend in war must 
be under the control of the federal 

153 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

government absolutely and completely, 
and be trained, disciplined and organ- 
ized by it, if war is to be waged effi- 
ciently. In the turmoil and confusion 
of the moment, President Lincoln was 
compelled, as a matter of national 
safety, to assume dictatorial power. It 
was indeed fortunate for the nation 
that we had at that time a man as 
president who was willing to assume 
this responsibility. 

In order to meet the emergency in 
part, at least. President Lincoln, by 
proclamation, increased the strength 
of the regular army approximately 
23,000 men, and the navy 18,000 men. 
This action was subsequently con- 
firmed by Congress. In addition to 
the natural inevitable results of an 
u entire lack of military policy was the 
condition of rebellion, which had dis- 

154 



IN THE SIXTIES 

rupted to a certain extent the small 
standing army and rendered unavail- 
able the military resources of the 
nation in the way of supplies. Many 
or the northern arsenals had been 
largely stripped of supplies. There 
was a condition of veritable military 
chaos. Fortunately for the safety of 
the country and the outcome of the 
war, the South was unprepared and 
had available no well organized 
force to take advantage promptly 
of the helplessness of the national 
government. 

An attempt was made by the fed- 
eral authorities to organize a force of 
regulars and volunteers on sound 
lines. The regiments were to be of 
three battalions, two at the front and 
one as a depot battalion. It was also 
proposed to treat volunteers as a 

155 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

purely federal force, the officers to be 
commissioned by the president. The 
commission, composed of regular offi- 
cers whose report embodied these sug- 
gestions, acted on sound lines, but 
their views and recommendations were 
rejected, and the volunteers were, to 
a certain extent, state troops; to the 
governors was left the appointing of 
officers. This, coupled with the em- 
ployment of untrained, poorly organ- 
ized and officered militia, was another 
of the serious blunders in the early 
stages of the war. 

If the proposition of the board of 
regular officers had been approved, 
we should have entered the war on 
a comparatively sound basis and 
undoubtedly terminated it in much 
less time than was eventually neces- 
sary, and with much less loss of life 

156 



IN THE SIXTIES 

and expenditure of money; but under 
the policy adopted, governors of states 
soon showed a distinct tendency to 
create new regiments instead of filling 
up their old ones. The new regiments 
gave an opportunity to appoint new 
officers — in other words, local politics 
was exerting a strong influence in the 
building up of the military establish- 
ment. Had the appointment of offi- 
cers rested with the president and the 
policy been adopted of keeping the 
old regiments full, we should have 
very soon had a highly effective and 
efficient force. The handful of regular 
officers and men was the nucleus 
around which the whole volunteer mil- 
itary establishment rallied. 

No attempt will be made to follow 
in detail the conduct of the war. All 
that it is desired to point out is that 

157 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

the militia feature of the system was 
a failure and that the volunteer sys- 
tem, as such, failed both in the North- 
ern and Southern army. The spirit 
of the volunteers was splendid, but 
the system was unsound and could not 
be depended upon. It failed as it had 
always failed and will always fail. 
The Confederacy was forced to resort 
to the draft in April, 1862; the 
national government published its 
first draft order in August, 1862, and 
resorted to the general draft the fol- 
lowing year. Desertion was rampant. 
Such great numbers deserted that effi- 
ciency was greatly impaired. Great 
numbers of officers were dismissed, and 
still greater numbers were got rid of 
as unfit for the service. 

The bounty — that evil child of the 
Revolution — soon came into being 

158 



IN THE SIXTIES 

and was in this, as in other wars, one 
of the strongest influences in debauch- 
ing the patriotism of our people and 
lowering the standards of the indi- 
vidual appreciation of the obligation 
for the national service. With it went 
a still greater evil, namely, the pur- 
chase of substitutes. It is difficult to 
conceive anything more at variance 
with the principles of representative 
government and individual obligation 
for national service in war, than the 
practice of buying substitutes, a prac- 
tice which made it possible for the 
rich to avoid service and escape the 
dangers and hardships of a campaign 
by paying other men to render their 
service for them. The eiFect of both 
the bounty and the purchase of substi- 
tutes was seen directly in the lowering 
of the general sentiment of individual 

159 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

obligation for service, and in the vastly 
increased number of desertions. 

In fact, those two procedures, the 
bounty and the purchase of substitutes, 
have done more than anything else to 
degrade and debauch that sense of 
individual obligation in time of war, 
which should animate a people. They 
have struck at the very foundation 
on which the republic rests: an 
appreciation and acceptance of the 
principle that with manhood suffrage 
goes manhood obligation for service. 

At the end of two years the armies 
on both sides began to reach a state 
of real efficiency, but it had been 
gained at a great and unnecessary 
cost in life and treasure. Each side 
was laboring under somewhat the same 
difficulties, although the South, as far 
as the conduct of the war was con- 

160 



IN THE SIXTIES 

cerned, was far better organized, in 
that it waged war more as a nation 
than the North, which greatly weak- 
ened itself in the conduct of the war 
through surrendering to the governors 
of the states too much of the federal 
power in matters pertaining to the 
raising and officering of troops. The 
Confederacy really conducted the war 
as a nation; the Union as a confed- 
eracy. By so doing, the Confederacy 
added at least fifty per cent to its effi- 
ciency. New regiments were not cre- 
ated to the extent that they were in 
the North. The government was suffi- 
ciently centralized to conduct the war 
with a much greater degree of effici- 
ency than was the Union government. 
Volunteering, as could have been 
expected, and doubtless was expected 
by all who had any knowledge of our 

161 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

military history, diminished after the 
first excitement was over, and the 
draft was in general application, both 
in the North and the South. 

At the end of the Civil War we 
were for the first and only time in our 
history prepared for war with a first- 
class power. We had an admirable 
navy and army, experienced, well 
organized, well equipped. Our condi- 
tion of preparedness was recognized 
by foreign governments, as indicated 
by the prompt evacuation of Mexico 
by Napoleon upon the request of this 
government. 

Once the Mexican difficulty was 
settled, the strength of the regular 
army was gradually reduced. The 
strength fluctuated from year to year. 
In 1898 it amounted to 28,747. At 
the close of the Civil War, until the 

162 



IN THE SIXTIES 

outbreak of the war with Spain, the 
army was principally engaged in 
Indian operations in the West, work 
which was largely of a police char- 
acter. Men were kept in the service 
as long as practical; knowledge of the 
language, of the country and the 
habits of the Indian, made the re-en- 
listed man valuable. It was really a 
military police force and not an army 
in the proper sense of the word. The 
organizations were skeletonized and 
kept at reduced strength. 

This period was, from the stand- 
point of military progress, a period 
of dry rot, interrupted occasionally by 
sporadic activities incident to Indian 
outbreaks. The organizations were 
full of old soldiers. The work of the 
army was valuable in the highest sense 
as an aid in the development of the 

163 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

Great West, and this portion of its 
work is one of the most interesting 
from the standpoint of local history; 
but it was not a period marked by mili- 
tary progress or development. Pro- 
motion was slow; officers reached com- 
mand grade when they were too old 
to exercise it. The militia was, gener- 
ally speaking, inefficient and of little 
or no military value. Our regular 
army equipment was years behind that 
of the great military powers of 
Europe; we showed all the effects of 
our peaceful slumber, so far as mili- 
tary development went. Interest in 
military matters was reduced to a 
minimum; people were principally 
concerned in the development of the 
natural resources of the country, 
opening up lines of communication, 
building railroads, turning natural 

164 



IN THE SIXTIES 

wealth into money. For a long time 
after the war we had available for 
service from a million and a half to 
two million men who had served 
through the Civil war, and many thou- 
sands of able officers; in other words, 
we had an unorganized though trained 
reserve. 

In the thirty-three years which had 
elapsed between the Civil War and 
the war with Spain, which now began 
to loom up, nearly all this personnel 
had ceased to be valuable through age, 
physical disability and many other less 
important causes, such as change in 
arms and equipment. When the war 
with Spain began, it was at once 
apparent that nothing of importance 
whatever had been taken to heart from 
the lessons of the Civil War, and that 
we were wholly unprepared from 

165 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

every standpoint. We were without 
reserves of men, officers or material. 
We were using an obsolete rifle, anti- 
quated artillery, black powder. In 
fact, we were a military " Rip Van 
Winkle." Fortunately, our navy was 
stronger than the navy of our enemy, 
and our coasts were free from moles- 
tation. 

Our condition at that time was one 
of disorganization and unprepared- 
ness. On every side was lack of well- 
thought-out preparation. A clumsy, 
bureaucratic system of administration 
crumbled under the first pressure which 
was put upon it; the sanitary adminis- 
tration of our camps showed in many 
instances lack of elementary knowledge 
and reasonable prudence, and an entire 
want of discipline. There were some 
marked exceptions, but generally 

166 



IN THE SIXTIES 

speaking, sanitary incompetency, to- 
gether with administrative failure, 
served to give us a death hst from 
diseases many times greater than that 
from bullets. 



167 



chapter vii 
The Value of Preparedness 

"The safety of the United States^ 
under divine protection, ought to rest 
on the basis of systematic and solid 
arrangements exposed as little as pos- 
sible to the hazards of fortuitous cir- 
cumstances.'* — George Washington, 
Third Annual Address, 

The safety of our country and its 
institutions, the opportunity to enjoy 
life, liberty and the pursuit of happi- 
ness under the American flag, will 
be jeopardized unless there is well- 
thought-out, well-organized prepared- 
ness — a preparedness based upon the 
principle that with equality in the 
opportunities and privileges of citizen- 
ship goes hand in hand equality of 

168 



VALUE OF PREPAREDNESS 

obligation for service to the nation in 
peace or war. 

Citizenship means a great deal or 
it means nothing. To the savage with- 
out a country it is a meaningless word. 

To the Roman it meant everything. 
Our nation must be prepared if our 
government is to give us that type of 
citizenship which carries with it the 
privilege and the honors which the word 
implies when applied to the citizens of 
a great country, a citizenship of the 
type implied in the words of the cen- 
turion to those who were about to 
scourge Saint Paul without trial, 
" Take heed what thou doest for this 
man is a Roman." 

While just and tolerant we must be 
prepared and strong enough on land 
and sea so that those contemplating 
injury to one of our citizens may hear 

169 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

the warning voice, " Take heed what 
thou doest for this man is an 
American." 

The people whom preparedness most 
concerns, both from their number and 
in the unfortunate result of the absence 
of preparedness, are the wives and the 
families of the men who in war consti- 
tute the rank and file of our armies. 
The great mass of our population, they 
feel more severely than any other class 
the results of a disastrous war — the 
loss of men, the loss of protectors and 
supporters. We desire for them a 
better destiny. 

Avoidance of war will be rendered 
far more probable and peace far more 
secure by such well-ordered measures 
in the way of preparedness as will pro- 
tect us against unjust aggression, and 
by such sound training and education 

170 



VALUE OF PREPAREDNESS 

of our children as will fill them with 
a sense of justice and fair dealing. 

Whether or not the time will come 
when war will be controlled by a league 
of nations, and a discussion of diffi- 
culties insisted upon before a resort to 
force, is a question which time alone 
can answer. We hope it may be so. 
In the meantime, work for this as we 
may and as we should, we must not 
forget the situation which confronts us, 
the conditions which surround us. 

As we look back over the long and 
needlessly costly wars of the past, we 
realize how much was due to the lack 
of preparedness. 

The practical and vital questions 
that now concern us are: Have we 
learned anything from these hideously 
costly and wasteful wars? Are we 
prepared to take steps necessary to 

171 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

establish a rational degree of prepar- 
edness, which will not only serve as an 
insurance for peace but will, if we are 
forced into war, make it short and 
limit the expenditure of life to the 
minimum. Or are we going on to 
our next war without organization and 
without preparation, depending upon 
the unexpected, some happy chance, 
some dreamed-of invention, which will 
make good our lack of preparation, 
or tend to insure our protection? Men 
work their own miracles in matters of 
defense. 

The only war we have to fear is 
war with a highly organized and thor- 
oughly prepared power of the first 
class. Nothing will protect us against 
defeat or destruction in such a war, 
except the most thorough organization 
and careful preparation made in time 

172 



VALUE OF PREPAREDNESS 

of peace. We must remember the 
world-old slogan, than which truer 
words were never uttered, " In time of 
peace prepare for war." We might 
vary it by saying, " In time of peace 
make such preparation against war as 
will make it improbable," but however 
we state it, it means preparation — 
careful, thorough and well thought out. 
In considering this great question, 
it must constantly be borne in mind 
that we have never yet in all our his- 
tory engaged single-handed in war with 
a first-class power prepared for war. 
This experience is undoubtedly before 
us unless our history is to be different 
from that of all other peoples, an 
assumption which is wholly unwar- 
ranted. We may see no concrete dan- 
ger at the present, but in these times, 
although at peace, we are like a ship 

173 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

in the cyclone area with messages con- 
stantly coming in over the wireless, 
bearing tales of storm and disaster all 
about us. We are poor sailors and 
unworthy of the trust and responsi- 
bihty placed upon us if we do not 
take heed of the warnings. 

Our wars have been hideously waste- 
ful of life because we have sent the 
youth of our country into war 
untrained and undisciplined — even 
worse, we have sent them unprepared 
either to take care of themselves or 
to render efficient service as soldiers. 
We have required of them the sacri- 
fice but we have not given them the 
opportunity to make it reasonably 
effective. We have sent them un- 
trained, willing, but unprepared; we 
have sent them under officers ignorant 
of their elementary duties. We have 

174 



VALUE OF PREPAREDNESS 

thrown away their Hves with reckless, 
brutal prodigality. Fortunately for 
our interests and national life, our 
enemies have either been inferior in 
strength and resources, or, like our- 
selves, have been unprepared and have 
had to learn the art of war while 
engaged in war. 

This would be impossible in case of 
war with a strong, well-organized 
nation, a nation whose effort is 
founded upon well-thought-out prep- 
aration — a nation which has not left 
all the burden of war for the moment 
of war, but has prepared in advance, 
her organization, including reserves of 
men, her equipment and adequate sup- 
plies to make good the consumption 
and losses of war. 

A policy which permits a people to 
drift on willing but unprepared, in 

175 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

spite of all the lessons of the past, 
ignorantly proposing to place the bur- 
dens of war wholly upon the period 
of war, IS a policy which spells 
destruction for this or any other 
people foolish enough to adopt and 
follow it. It is a policy which must 
meet the strong condemnation of every 
patriotic man who has an interest 
either in the lives of his people or the 
welfare of his country. No soldier 
worthy of the name, either from the 
standpoint of information or that of 
patriotic impulse, could for a moment 
advocate such a policy unless bowing 
to political opportunism rather than 
seeking the welfare and safety of his 
country. The experience and lessons 
of the past are especially valuable if 
we will but heed them, for the lessons 
taught by mistakes are ofttimes, to 

176 



VALUE OF PREPAREDNESS 

honest, open-minded men, as valuable 
as success. 

Our system has been most undem- 
ocratic. We have induced our people 
by bounty, by gifts of land and other 
means, to discharge their plain mili- 
tary obligations. We have encour- 
aged a system which has enabled the 
rich to escape the blood tax — the 
service in war — through their abihty 
to buy others to take their places in 
the ranks. I refer to the unspeakably 
contemptible, unpatriotic and, for the 
future, I hope, impossible practice of 
buying substitutes. Further resort to 
these vicious practices should not be 
permitted. 

Every good American honors the 
real volunteer spirit, but it is difficult 
to understand how anv man who is 
familiar with our country's history can 

177 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

advocate the continuance of the volun- 
teer system, with its uncertainties, 
unpreparedness and lack of equality 
of service. We have been warned 
repeatedly by the experience of others 
of the folly of depending upon the 
volunteer system. The lack of train- 
ing, the uncertainty in the way of 
returns, the cost, the confusion, have 
all served to demonstrate the danger 
of the procedure; the danger to us has 
been greatly increased by the thorough- 
ness of modern organization and the 
rapidity with which armies can be 
transported over land or sea to deliver 
attacks in force. 

Washington's letters are full of 
advice against trusting to uncertain 
returns and insisting upon organiza- 
tion and preparation. The best and 
bravest have always rushed to the 

178 



VALUE OF PREPAREDNESS 

colors first. They are willing but 
unprepared, and prove an almost 
unavailing sacrifice. After the excite- 
ment wears off, men no longer come, 
as was seen during the Revolution and 
during the Civil War. Then comes 
the use of the bounty, a most vicious 
and demoralizing practice, and then 
the draft, and this always in the crisis 
of a struggle. What system could be 
more dangerous in these days of 
organized preparedness ? 

Service to the nation and for the 
nation in war is a service which every 
man, rich and poor, must give, if 
required, subject only to the limita- 
tions of age and health. When this 
vital principle is generally recognized 
and the rich and the poor stand 
shoulder to shoulder in the nation's 
service, there will be much less of 

179 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

class distinction and much more soli- 
darity and a better national spirit. 
Individuals with more intelligence 
than courage admit the general propo- 
sition that manhood suffrage goes 
hand in hand with manhood service, 
and still state that the country is not 
yet ready for it. If it is not ready 
it is because they and others of their 
kind lack the courage to state and 
urge their convictions. If there was 
ever a time in the history of this 
country when it is apparent that this 
great principle should be urged as the 
only just and equitable one — the 
only one on which we can safely rely 
— it is to-day, with the lessons of the 
greatest of all wars before our eyes. 
That struggle shows conclusively, as 
have our past wars, that a volunteer 
system cannot be depended upon and 

180 



VALUE OF PREPAREDNESS 

that dependence upon such a system 
means hastily-raised and untrained 
armies, officered by willing but unin- 
structed officers. It means campaigns 
accompanied by losses unnecessarily 
great and attended by results far short 
of what could have been obtained. 

We must continue our efforts for 
World Peace, encourage arbitration, 
do all we can to extend its apphca- 
tion, but while doing this we must not 
forget the fact — if we do we shall 
aid in accomplishing the destruction 
of our own nation — that the era of 
World Peace has not yet arrived, and 
that arbitration is not yet of general 
application. We must not only be 
just, tolerant and upright in all our 
dealings with other people, but we 
must also be ready to meet the strength 
of evil with the force of right. 

181 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

Our people must be organized and 
prepared in order that they may be 
able to uphold the institutions they 
believe in, defend the right, and if 
need be, aid the oppressed. 

It is unfortunate that we cannot 
depend upon our own fair dealing 
and sense of justice to protect us, but 
nevertheless it is a fact that we cannot. 
In seeking the ideal we must not for- 
get the actual; we must not let our 
hopes for the future regulate entirely 
our conduct at the present. A people 
may dream of peace and work for it, 
but they should not lose sight of the 
fact that it is not yet among us. We 
are struggling for the elimination of 
dreaded diseases, but, realizing that we 
have not thus far been successful, we 
take every possible precaution against 
them. So it is with war. 

182 



VALUE OF PREPAREDNESS 

It is a pathetic sight to see a great 
people, despite all the teachings of 
history, follow counsels which must 
lead not only to unnecessary sacrifice 
of life, but even perhaps to the loss 
of national freedom. It is the duty 
of all who have gathered anything 
from the history of the past, to bring 
before the people frankly the lessons 
taught by the past results of lack of 
organization and preparation. 

The professional pacifist, the advo- 
cate of unpreparedness and nonresist- 
ance, is the most dangerous of our 
citizens. He is generally eminently 
respectable. He is like the well-dressed 
and well-groomed typhoid carrier, as 
he goes about, poisoning the very life 
of the people. He advocates a policy 
which if adopted will surely end in 
great and unnecessary loss of hfe, if 

183 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

not in the final loss of our national 
liberty. 

Assuming that our cause is just, non- 
resistance and unpreparedness mean 
the establishment of a condition which 
prevents our effectively defending the 
right. It assures the subordination 
of good to evil. It is the most 
brutal of all policies, as well as the 
most cowardly and sinister; brutal 
in that it insures the unnecessary 
loss of thousands upon thousands 
of our people in a struggle that is 
fruitless because it is unprepared and 
unorganized. It is the more cowardly 
and sinister in that it is an admission 
that there is nothing worth fighting 
for — that there are no great prin- 
ciples which are worth the sacrifice of 
life. It is a policy which marks the 
decadence of a people, and if followed 

184 



VALUE OF PREPAREDNESS 

by the bulk of a nation means that 
its end is at hand. 

Preparedness is based upon organi- 
zation. National preparedness means 
far more than the mere organization 
of the army and navy. It means, first 
of all, the moral organization of the 
people, an organization which creates 
in the heart of every citizen a sense 
of his obligation for service to the 
nation in time of war or other diffi- 
culty. This is the greatest part of 
organization, and if once accomplished 
all the rest follows easily and natur- 
ally. The organization of the indus- 
trial resources of the country would 
place the government in possession of 
full knowledge concerning the capa- 
city of each industrial plant — just 
what it can do, how much, and when 
— and at the same time would place 

185 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

in the possession of the various indus- 
trial organizations an exact knowl- 
edge of what was expected of them 
and would see to it that they are 
properly equipped to discharge their 
obligations promptly when called 
upon. An organization which takes 
into consideration transportation, com- 
munications and supply; the organiza- 
tion of the sanitary service, and of the 
various special groups of highly- 
trained men; an organization of the 
financial system of the country so that 
it may have the elasticity and expan- 
sibility to meet the demands of war; 
the organization of the economical 
resources of the country; the careful 
study of ways and means to make 
good shortages; organization of our 
chemical resources; provision as far as 
possible of substitutes for things which 

186 



VALUE OF PREPAREDNESS 

are not found within our own limits, so 
that we may be supplied in case of loss 
of sea power — all these things come 
under organization and require much 
time for their consideration. This 
cannot be accomplished in the haste 
and confusion of war. 

A wise nation, realizing that its 
safety depends upon preparation, and 
that preparation depends upon organi- 
zation, gives careful heed to all these 
questions. It is a vital part of 
national policy. 

The fighting forces of the nation, 
the land and sea forces, might be com- 
pared to the edge of an extremely 
heavy knife. The mass of steel behind 
the edge represents trained reserves 
of men, reserves of munitions, organi- 
zation, transportation, communication, 
sanitary units, special service groups 

187 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

— in brief, all that great mass of 
organization which measures the might 
of the nation, which serves to renew 
the cutting edge and to give it the 
rigidity and weight necessary to force 
it home. It is the type of organiza- 
tion which makes it possible to apply 
promptly the might of the nation, and 
to maintain it for the maximum period 
of time; it is organization which leaves 
nothing to chance. It is a recognition 
of the fact that efficiency can be 
secured only through preparation, 
and that preparation rests upon 
organization. 

This sort of preparation makes 
for national unity, consequently for 
national strength. It involves having 
all the men of a certain age doing 
something in common for the nation 
at the same time. It makes for 

188 



VALUE OF PREPAREDNESS 

national solidarity; it tends to do away 
with class distinctions. It tends to 
build up a truer national spirit, to 
fuse the various elements into a homo- 
geneous mass which, with us, would 
be one of real Americanism. It tends 
to the establishment of a condition 
which will obhterate the sharp distinc- 
tions between the rich and the poor, 
the distinctions of race and creed, and 
to make us one homogeneous mass 
fused by common patriotic impulses. 
A people not only willing but organ- 
ized and trained for peace and, if 
need be, for war. 

If we have faith in our institutions 
and confidence in ourselves, and believe 
our purpose in the world is a worthy 
one, this is a condition which we should 
strive to attain. Its attainment will 
result in better citizens, better men 

189 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

physically, men better morally and 
more efficient from the economic stand- 
point, men more tolerant and more 
observant of the rights of others. They 
will be better physically because of 
the training which will have placed 
their bodies more fully under the con- 
trol of their will, will have built up 
their muscles, corrected their physical 
defects, taught them how to protect 
themselves in camp and field and to 
ward off disease and infection. They 
will be better citizens morally because 
of the discipline they have had. They 
will be more observant of the law 
and the constituted authorities; more 
observant of the rights of others; 
more efficient economically because of 
their habits of discipline, regularity 
and promptness. They will appreciate 
that with the rights and opportunities 

190 



VALUE OF PREPAREDNESS 

of citizenship go its obligations. They 
will be all-around better citizens, and 
collectively we shall be a better nation. 
An approximate idea of the unneces- 
sary cost of our military establishment 
resulting from an unsound military 
policy, is indicated by the statement on 
the following page, taken from Huide- 
koper's statement to the Mihtary 
Affairs Committee of the Senate. 



191 



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chapter viii 
What We Should Do 

"Oh, ye Athenians, yet is there 
time! And there is one manner in 
which you can recover your greatness, 
or, dying, fall worthy of your past — 
go yourself, every man of you, and 
stand in the ranks; and either a vic- 
tory beyond all victories in its glory 
awaits you, or, falling, you shall fall 
greatly and worthy of your past." — 
Demosthenes to the Athenians. 

Our past military policy, so far as 
it concerns the land forces, has been 
thoroughly unsound and in violation 
of basic military principles. We have 
succeeded not because of it, but in 
spite of it. It has been unnecessarily 
and brutally costly in human life and 
recklessly extravagant in the expendi- 

193 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

ture of treasure. It has tended greatly 
to prolong our wars and consequently 
has delayed national development. 

Because we have succeeded in spite 
of an unsound system, those who do 
not look beneath the surface fail to 
recognize the numerous shortcomings 
of that system, or appreciate how dan- 
gerous is our further dependence 
upon it. 

The time has come to put our house 
in order through the establishment of 
a sound and dependable system, and 
to make such wise and prudent prepa- 
ration as will enable us to defend suc- 
cessfully our country and our rights. 

No such system can be established 
which does not rest upon equahty of 
service for all who are physically fit 
and of proper age. Manhood suffrage 
means manhood obligation for service 

194 



WHAT WE SHOULD DO 

in peace or war. This is the basic 
principle upon which truly representa- 
tive government, or free democracy, 
rests and must rest if it is successfully 
to withstand the shock of modern war. 

The acceptance of this fundamental 
principle will require to a certain 
extent the moral organization of the 
people, the building up of that sense 
of individual obligation for service to 
the nation which is the basis of true 
patriotism, the teaching of our people 
to think in terms of the nation rather 
than in those of a locality or of per- 
sonal interest. 

This organization must also be 
accompanied by the organization, clas- 
sification and training of our men and 
the detailed and careful organization 
of the material resources of the coun- 
try with the view to making them 

195 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

promptly available in case of need and 
to remedying any defects. 

In the organization of our land 
forces we must no longer place 
reliance upon plans based upon the 
development of volunteers or the use 
of the militia. The volunteer system 
is not dependable because of the uncer- 
tainty as to returns, and in any case 
because of lack of time for training 
and organization. 

Modern wars are often initiated 
without a formal declaration of war 
or by a declaration which is coincident 
with the first act of war. 

Dependence upon militia under state 
control or partially under state con- 
trol, spells certain disaster, not because 
of the quality of the men or officers, 
but because of the system under which 
they work. 

196 



WHAT WE SHOULD DO 

We must also have a first-class 
navy, well balanced and thoroughly 
equipped with all necessary appliances 
afloat and ashore. It is the first line 
of defense. 

We need a highly efficient regular 
army, adequate to the peace needs of 
the nation. By this is meant a 
regular force, fully equipped, thor- 
oughly trained and properly organ- 
ized, with adequate reserves of men 
and material, and a force sufficient to 
garrison our over-sea possessions, 
including the Philippines and the 
Hawaiian Islands. These latter are 
the key to the Pacific and one of the 
main defenses of our Pacific coast and 
the Panama Canal, and whoever holds 
them dominates the trade routes of 
the greater portion of the Pacific and, 
to a large extent, that ocean. The 

197 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

army must be sufficient also to provide 
an adequate garrison for the Panama 
Canal, which is an implement of com- 
merce and an instrument of war so 
valuable that we must not under any 
conditions allow it to lie outside our 
secure grasp. 

The regular force must also be ade- 
quate to provide sufficient troops for 
our coast defenses and such garrisons 
as may be required in Porto Rico and 
Alaska. The regular force must also 
be sufficient to provide the necessary 
mobile force in the United States; by 
this is meant a force of cavalry, 
infantry, field artillery, engineers and 
auxiliary troops sufficient to provide 
an expeditionary force such as we sent 
to Cuba in 1898, and at the same 
time to provide a force sufficient to 
meet possible conditions of internal 

198 



WHAT WE SHOULD DO 

disorder. It must also furnish train- 
ing units for the National Guard, or 
whatever force the federal government 
may eventually establish in place of it, 
and provide sufficient officers for duty 
under the detail system in the various 
departments, instructors at the various 
colleges and schools where military 
instruction is or may be estabhshed, 
attaches abroad and officers on special 
missions. 

The main reliance in a war with a 
first-class power will ultimately be the 
great force of citizen soldiers forming 
a purely federal force, thoroughly 
organized and equipped with reserves 
of men and material. This force must 
be trained under some system which 
will permit the instruction to be given 
in part during the school period or age, 
thereby greatly reducing the time 

199 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

required for the final intensive period 
of training, which should be under 
regular officers and in conjunction 
with regular troops. In brief, the 
system must be one which utilizes as 
far as possible the means and oppor- 
tunities now available, and interferes 
as little as possible with the educa- 
tional or industrial careers of those 
affected. A system moulded on the 
general lines of the Australian or 
Swiss^ will accomplish this. Some 
modifications will be required to meet 
our conditions. 

Each year about one milhon men 
reach the military age of 18; of this 
number not more than fifty per cent 
are fit for military service, this being 
about the average in other countries. 
Far less than fifty per cent come up 

^ See Appendix for complete description. 
200 



WHAT WE SHOULD DO 

to the standards required for the regu- 
lar army, but the minor defects reject- 
ing them for the regular army would 
not reject them for general military 
service. Assuming that some system 
on the general lines of the Australian 
or Swiss must be eventually adopted 
in this country, it would seem that 
about 500,000 men would be available 
each year for military training. If the 
boys were prepared by the state author- 
ities, through training in schools and 
colleges, and in state training areas — 
when the boys were not in school — to 
the extent that they are in Switzerland 
or Australia, it would be possible, when 
they come up for federal training, to 
finish their military training — so far 
as preparing them for the duties of 
enlisted men is concerned — within a 
period of approximately three months. 

201 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

We should be able to limit the period 
of first line obligation to the period 
from eighteen to twenty-five, inclusive, 
or seven years, or we could make the 
period of obligatory service begin two 
years later and extend it to twenty- 
seven. This procedure would give in 
the first line approximately three and 
one-half millions of men at the age of 
best physical condition and of minimum 
dependent and business responsibility. 
From the men of certain years (classes) 
of this period, organizations of federal 
forces should be built up to the extent 
of at least twenty-five divisions. They 
would be organized and equipped 
exactly like the regular army and 
would be held ready for immediate 
service as our present militia would be 
were it under federal control. 

Men of these organizations would 
202 



WHAT WE SHOULD DO 

not live in uniform but would go about 
their regular occupations as do the 
members of the militia to-day, but they 
would be equipped, organized and 
ready for immediate service. If emer- 
gency required it, additional organiza- 
tions could be promptly raised from the 
men who were within the obligatory 
period. 

There should be no pay in peace 
time except when the men were on 
duty and then it should be merely 
nominal. The duty should be recog- 
nized as a part of the man's citizenship 
obligation to the nation. The organiza- 
tions to be made up of men within 
the period of obligatory service, could 
be filled either by the men who indi- 
cated their desire for such training or 
by drawing them by lot. This is a 
matter of detail. The regular army 

203 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

as organized would be made up as 
to-day ; it would be a professional army. 
The men who came into it would be 
men who had received in youth this 
citizenship training. They would come 
into the regular army because they 
wanted to be professional soldiers. 
The regular army would be to a certain 
extent the training nucleus for the 
citizen soldier organizations and would 
be the force garrisoning our over-sea 
possessions. It would be much easier 
to maintain our regular army in a 
highly efficient condition, as general 
military training would have produced 
a respect for the uniform and an appre- 
ciation of the importance of a soldier's 
duty. 

The reserve corps of officers would 
be composed of men who had had 
longer and more advanced training, and 

204 



WHAT WE SHOULD DO 

could be recruited and maintained as 
indicated below, through further train- 
ing of men from the military schools 
and colleges and those from the officers' 
training corps units of the nonmilitary 
universities and colleges. There would 
also be those from the military training 
camps and other sources, such as men 
who have served in the army and have 
the proper qualifications. This would 
give a military establishment in which 
every man would be physically fit to 
play his part and would have finished 
his obligation in what was practically 
his early manhood, with little proba- 
bility of being called upon again unless 
the demands of war were so great as 
to require more men than those of the 
total first line, eighteen to twenty-five 
years, inclusive. Then they would be 
called by years as the occasion required, 

205 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

and would be available for service up 
to their forty-fifth year. It would give 
us a condition of real national pre- 
paredness, a much higher type of 
citizenship, a lower criminal rate and 
an enormously improved economic 
efficiency. Pending the establishment 
of such a system, every effort 
should be made to transfer the state 
militia to federal control. By this is 
meant its complete removal from state 
control and its establishment as a 
purely federal force, having no more 
relation to the states than the regular 
army has at present. This force under 
federal control will make a very valu- 
able nucleus for the building up of a 
federal force of citizen soldiers. Offi- 
cers and men should be transferred 
with their present grades and ratings. 
The states have full authority to 
206 



WHAT WE SHOULD DO 

maintain a military force of their 
own and under their exclusive control, 
if they desire to do so. Pennsylvania 
has established a state constabulary 
and in doing so has taken a long step 
in the right direction. Pennsylvania 
has not had to call upon her militia 
for strike or riot duty for a good 
many years. 

As has been recommended by the 
General Staff, there should be built 
up with the least possible delay a 
corps of at least 50,000 reserve offi- 
cers, on lines and through means 
recommended by the General Staff, 
and by means of a further develop- 
ment of the United States Military 
Training Camps for college students 
and older men, which have been in 
operation for a number of years. 
These plans include the coordination 

207 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

of the instruction at the various 
military colleges and schools and 
the establishment of well-thought-out 
plans for the nonmilitary colleges at 
which it may be decided to establish 
officers' training corps units on lines 
now under consideration. 

This number of officers, fifty thou- 
sand, may seem excessive to some, but 
when it is remembered that there were 
one hundred and twentv-seven thou- 
sand officers in the Northern army 
during the Civil War, and over sixty 
thousand in the Southern, fifty thou- 
sand will not appear to be excessive. 
Fifty thousand officers w^ll be barely 
sufficient properly to officer a million 
and a half citizen soldiers. We had 
in service. North and South, during 
the Civil War, over four million men, 
and at the end of the war we had 

208 



WHAT WE SHOULD DO 

approximately one and a quarter mil- 
lion under arms. 

Under legislative provision enacted 
during the Civil War, commonly 
known as the Morrill Act, Congress 
established mechanical and agricultural 
colleges in each state, among other 
things prescribing military instruction 
and providing for this purpose officers 
of the regular army. There are 
nearly thirty thousand students at 
these institutions who receive during 
their course military instruction for 
periods of from one to two years. 
In some cases the instruction is excel- 
lent; in others it is very poor. 

There are in addition a large num- 
ber of military colleges and schools; 
at these there are some ten thousand 
students, so that there are approxi- 
mately forty thousand young men 

209 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

receiving military instruction, nearly 
all of them under officers of the army. 
This means a graduating class of 
about eight thousand, of whom not 
more than forty-five hundred would be 
fit to undergo military training. 

These men should be assembled in 
United States Military Training 
Camps for periods of five weeks each 
for two consecutive years, in order 
that they may receive that practical 
and thorough instruction which in the 
majority of instances is not possible 
during their college course. With 
these should be assembled the men who 
have taken the officers' training course 
at the various nonmilitary universi- 
ties. This course, as outlined by the 
General Staff, will be thorough and 
conducted, so far as the purely mili- 
tary courses and duties are concerned, 

210 



WHAT WE SHOULD DO 

under the immediate control of officers 
of the army. 

From all these sources we have 
practically an inexhaustible supply of 
material from which excellent reserve 
officers can be made. From the men 
assembled in camp each year, fifteen 
hundred should be selected and com- 
missioned, subject only to a physical 
examination, as they are all men of 
college type, for one year as second 
lieutenants in the line and in the vari- 
ous staff corps and departments of 
the regular army. They should receive 
the pay and allowance of second lieu- 
tenants, or such pay and allowance as 
may be deemed to be appropriate. 

The men who receive this training 
would furnish very good material for 
reserve officers of the grade of captain 
and major, whereas as a rule the men 

211 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

>vho have not had this training would 
quahfy only in the grade of lieutenant. 

From this group of men could well 
be selected, subject to the prescribed 
mental and physical examination, the 
greater portion of the candidates from 
civil life for appointment in the army. 
We have the material and the machin- 
ery for turning out an excellent corps 
of reserve officers. All that is needed 
is to take hold of it and shape it. 

The prompt building up of a reserve 
corps of officers is one of the most 
vitally important steps to be taken. It 
is absolutely essential. It takes much 
time and care to train officers. Not 
only should students of the various 
colleges, universities and schools where 
military training is given, be made 
use of to the fullest extent, but the 
military training camps which have 

212 



WHAT WE SHOULD DO 

been conducted so successfully during 
the past few years should be greatly 
extended and made a part of the gen- 
eral plan of providing officers for the 
officers' reserve corps. It will be nec- 
essary to place the instruction at these 
camps on a different basis and to com- 
bine certain theoretical work with the 
practical work of the camp. This is a 
matter of detail which can be readily 
arranged. The results attained at 
these camps fully justify their being 
given the most serious attention and 
being made a part of the general plan 
for the training of officers. 



213 



chapter ix 
Constructive Work of the Army 

"All civic virtues^ all the heroism 
and self-sacrifice of patriotism, spring 
ultimately from the habit men acquire 
of regarding their nation as a great 
organic whole, identifying themselves 
with its fortunes in the past as in the 
present, and looking forward anxiously 
to its future destinies." — LecJce, 

Our people as a whole do not under- 
stand what a tremendous factor our 
little army has been in the building 
up of the nation and the development 
of its resources from the earliest days. 
They too often think of it only as an 
instrument of destruction. As a mat- 
ter of fact it has been one of the great 
influences in opening up and building 

214 



WORK OF THE ARMY 

up the country and maintaining public 
order. Of recent years it has played 
a very great role as an administrative 
force, and in areas under its control 
great advances have been made and 
lasting benefits to humanity secured. 

Before and after the Civil War the 
army was the main instrument in the 
maintenance of order, the safeguard- 
ing of life and in the opening up and 
protection of lines of communication 
incident to the development of the 
West. This period of the army's 
activity was full of fascinating inter- 
est; it was attended by much hard 
and dangerous work. Even to this 
day the strongest hold the army has 
upon the affections of our western 
people is the result of the work of 
this period. 

At the outbreak of the Spanish 
215 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

War the army entered upon a new 
field of activity. The war with Spain 
was not a great war. Fighting was 
limited to a few hotly-contested actions 
in Cuba and to some of lesser impor- 
tance in Porto Rico. Immediately 
upon the cessation of hostilities the 
army was confronted with the neces- 
sity of taking over the civil adminis- 
tration of the conquered territory. 
This administration was conducted 
under the broad authority of military 
law, but the agency employed was the 
law of the land. It was military for 
the time being, in that its source of 
authority was the power of the mili- 
tary occupant. Some deviations in 
form of procedure, due to emergency 
measures, were required, but, generally 
speaking, the municipal law governed 
in the town and city, and the general 

216 



WORK OF THE ARMY 

law of the land in the administration 
of justice and the control of admin- 
istrative procedure. The basic policy- 
was to avoid changes in the substan- 
tive body of the law, and to limit, as 
far as possible, modifications to pro- 
cedure, with a view to its betterment 
and simplification, and also to giving 
the accused a larger measure of 
protection. 

The administrative work in Cuba 
not only involved the everyday con- 
duct of public business, but an 
immense amount of constructive work 
incident to the establishment of a 
school system, construction of great 
public works, and of the general laws 
governing charitable institutions, as 
well as an enormous amount of sani- 
tary organization, an electoral law and 
constructive and administrative work 

21T 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

to bring about the many changes nec- 
essary to convert a war-wrecked, 
demoralized and exhausted colony, 
fever-stricken and overrun by disease, 
into a self-governing republic. 

This great work of the army 
involved not only the maintenance of 
public order and the safeguarding of 
life and property, but, what was more 
far-reaching, the building up of a 
sound system of sanitation, a system 
which, when once in operation, greatly 
reduced the death rate. Malaria, in 
its various forms, had been one of 
the great causes of death in Cuba. 
Measures were taken which very 
greatly reduced its ravages among the 
native population and almost elimi- 
nated it from the army. Smallpox 
had been a devastating scourge. This 
was done away with entirely by vacci- 

218 



WORK OF THE ARMY 

nation and the establishment of proper 
regulations. Yellow fever, one of the 
most dreaded of all tropical diseases, 
was brought under thorough control, 
the means of transmission discovered 
and the method of control worked out. 
This discovery freed Cuba of the dread 
disease which has swept away count- 
less thousands of its population and 
decimated the Spanish garrisons and 
the Spanish population for genera- 
tions. It is a discovery of vast impor- 
tance for all time to all living in the 
American tropical and semi-tropical 
countries. Its accomplishment was the 
work of medical officers of the army 
under the direction of Major Walter 
Reed. The general sanitary work in 
the Island was under the control of 
an army medical officer who was 
directly under the military governor. 

219 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

Cuban physicians of great ability co- 
operated loyally in the great work of 
the sanitary rehabilitation and ren- 
dered invaluable service. The discov- 
eries made in Cuba and the methods 
established for the control of yellow 
fever were adopted by other countries 
and the benefits secured are now com- 
mon to all countries formerly ravaged 
by this disease. The saving of life 
and money in our own country inci- 
dent to doing away with yellow fever 
and the quarantine that paralyzed the 
movement of business in the entire 
South, has been many, many times 
the cost of the war. 

In Porto Rico similar work was 
done with reference to malaria and 
smallpox. The same methods were 
applied as were employed in Cuba 
to control yellow fever. The great 

220 



WORK OF THE ARMY 

problem of tropical anemia was taken 
up and solved. A very great portion 
of the credit for this work is due to 
the army, principally to Major Bailey 
K. Ashford, army surgeon, who took 
up the work in Porto Rico and found 
that there was a real cause for what 
we looked upon as tropical shiftlessness 
and laziness. The cause was the hook- 
worm. Most energetic and successful 
measures were taken to combat it. 
Recent opinion is to the effect that the 
re-energization of the working class in 
Porto Rico incident to doing away 
with tropical anemia or hookworm dis- 
ease, amounts to about 60 per cent 
increased efficiency. The benefits of 
this discovery are being applied to 
many tropical and semi-tropical coun- 
tries, including our own South. It 
means the re-energization of a great 

221 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

mass of the people. The life-saving 
value is tremendous. Each year in 
Porto Rico the reduction in the death 
rate incident to the control of tropical 
anemia, exceeds the total loss by death 
and wounds in the Spanish- American 
War. Important constructive and 
administrative work was also accom- 
plished, during the period of military 
control, much of it directly under the 
military governors who were first 
appointed. 

Similar work, administrative, con- 
structive and sanitary, was accom- 
plished in the Philippines. There for 
a long time the government was under 
exclusive militarv control. Much val- 
uable and far-reaching sanitary work 
was done in those islands by medical 
officers of the army. This work has 
been taken up and continued by the 

222 



WORK OF THE ARMY 

medical forces of the civil government 
and pushed to a degree of success hard 
to appreciate by those who have not 
seen what has been done. It has been 
a great work, resulting in the saving 
of thousands and thousands of lives. 
The construction of the Panama Canal 
was largely army work. It was built 
very largely on a sanitary foundation. 
Splendid and effective as has been the 
work of the army engineers, the fright- 
ful death toll would have prevented the 
accomplishment of the undertaking 
had it not been for Reed's discovery 
concerning yellow fever and the splen- 
did application of the system of pre- 
vention by Surgeon- General William 
C. Gorgas, who made it possible to 
conduct the gigantic work of construc- 
tion under conditions — so far as health 
was concerned — equal to those existing 

223 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

in almost any portion of the conti- 
nental United States. These great 
sanitary works in lands under our con- 
trol or taken over by us, alone have 
saved many times the number of lives 
lost in the war. The benefits of these 
discoveries will be for all time. 

More recently other measures of the 
greatest value in saving human life 
have been taken by the military authori- 
ties of the government in the use of 
the anti-typhoid serum in the army; so 
effective has the serum been that 
although there are more than 100,000 
men scattered all over the world from 
Tientsin, China, to Panama, and from 
Porto Rico to Alaska, in the army we 
did not have a single death from 
typhoid in 1915. 

The universal application of this 
preventive measure in the army has 

224 



WORK OF THE ARMY 

demonstrated thoroughly that typhoid 
fever can be completely controlled ; that 
it is a preventable disease. Its univer- 
sal application to the military estab- 
lishment was first made in the United 
States. England first began the use 
of it, but did not make it general. 

The army has done tremendous serv- 
ice for the country in the handling of 
the grave and alarming conditions 
arising from the great Mississippi flood 
of recent years. So quietly was this 
work done that few people appreciate 
it; thousands and thousands of people 
have been saved from watery graves 
or from starvation. 

Such has been some of the con- 
structive and life-saving work of the 
army. A force designed to protect 
our lives and liberties in time of war, 
in time of peace it has always been 

225 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

one of the great factors in the develop- 
ment of our own country and of lands 
under our control. 

As has been pointed out again and 
again in the foregoing pages, the train- 
ing which men get in the army, the 
knowledge of sanitation, the respect 
for law and authority, and the habits 
of discipline, are of unestimable value 
in building up a sane and sound people. 
What the army has meant to our peo- 
ple, how far-reaching its work has been, 
is understood by few. It may at times 
fail, and in great emergency must fail 
unless backed and supported by an 
organized and devoted people, a people 
who appreciate that no amount of will- 
ingness can take the place of prepared- 
ness and training. 

Behind the regular army must 
always stand the great reserve army 

226 



WORK OF THE ARMY 

consisting of the able-bodied men of 
the nation, so trained as to be promptly 
available for military service if needed, 
but following their normal occupations 
in time of peace. 

Any policy which fails to recognize 
the principle of equal obligation and 
equal service is but a makeshift and a 
stop-gap. The volunteer system is 
unworthy of serious consideration; 
not trustworthy because it would cer- 
tainly break down under the sudden 
shock and strain of modern war; dan- 
gerous because it serves to lull people 
into a false sense of security. 



227 



APPENDIX 

THE AUSTRALIAN SYSTEM OF 
DEFENSE. 

Prior to 1870 the main defense of Australia 
was in the hands of the British troops quar- 
tered in the leading cities ; the primary purpose 
of these troops was to serve as a convict guard. 
Whenever war appeared to be imminent volun- 
teer corps were organized. 

All British troops were withdrawn in 1870, 
and small detachments of permanent forces 
were formed as a nucleus around which it was 
proposed to shape a citizen soldiery. In 1883- 
1884 a partially paid volunteer militia was 
organized. There was established at this time 
a system of military instruction in the schools 
for boys. This cadet system had attained con- 
siderable development, but had not reached the 
class of boys who fail for any reason to attend 
these schools, and was purely of a volunteer 
nature. In 1908 the volunteer system was ex- 
tended by providing for the military training 
of the youth not attending school, and who were 

228 



APPENDIX 

authorized to form a part of the land defense 
of the country. This system for both the gen- 
eral forces and the cadet forces proved unsat- 
isfactory, so that in 1909 a statute was passed 
making both the cadet system and the adult 
system compulsory. This act of 1909 did not 
become effective until June 30, 1911, on which 
date the volunteer system ceased, and on the 
following day the compulsory provisions of this 
act became effective. They divided the military 
and naval forces of the Commonwealth into 
"permanent" and "citizen" forces — the former 
bound to service for a term, the latter not so 
bound. Until 1911 they were divided into 
militia who were paid and volunteers who were 
not ordinarily paid for their services, with a 
reserve who had done active service. 

Until July 1, 1911, when compulsory training 
went into effect under the Act of 1909, enlist- 
ment in time of peace was voluntary. All male 
inhabitants between 18 and 60 were liable to 
service in time of war within the territorial 
limits of Australia only, and, in addition, cadet 
corps, in which were enrolled schoolboys under 
12 years of age and youths between 14 and 19 
not attending school, were established. These 
corps were not liable for active service. 

The Act of 1909 was the direct outcome of 

229 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

the feeling shared by all classes in the com- 
munity that the defense of Australia was inse- 
cure under a voluntary system; section 125 of 
this Act provides: 

All male inhabitants of Australia 
(excepting those who are exempted by 
this Act), who have resided therein 
for six months and are British sub- 
jects, shall be liable to be trained as 
follows: (a) From 12 to 14 years of 
age in the junior cadets; (b) From 14 
to 1 8 years of age in the senior cadets ; 
(c) From 18 to 26 years of age in the 
citizen forces ; provided that, except in 
time of imminent danger or war, the 
last year of service in the citizen forces 
shall be limited to one registration or 
one muster parade. 
The Acts of 1910-191S merely extended or 
curtailed certain minor provisions of the Act 
of 1909. To-day the system is substantially as 
follows : 

On July 1st of his 12th year every Australian 
boy who has been officially declared physically, 
mentally and morally fit, starts his training as 
a junior cadet. He is furnished with a hat, 
shirt, breeches, puttees and shoes, and is given 
a minimum of 90 hours' elementary military 

230 



APPENDIX 

training for each of two years. In his 14th 
year he becomes a senior cadet — his funda- 
mental military training for four years, with 
an annual minimum of four 4-hour drills, 
twelve 2-hour drills and twenty-four 1-hour 
drills in marching, discipline, the handling of 
arms, physical drill, guard duty and minor tac- 
tics. A cadet rifle and belt are added to his 
"junior" uniform, and 10 per cent of the best 
shots are given target practice with the service 
rifle. In his nineteenth year the youth becomes 
a member of the "citizen forces." He receives 
two woolen shirts, two pairs of breeches, over- 
coat, hat, sleeping cap, two pairs of leggings, 
two pairs of shoes, a kit bag, rifle and bayonet. 
In the "citizen forces" the minimum annual 
instruction must reach an equivalent of sixteen 
whole days' drill, not less than eight of which 
must be in camps of continuous training. 

From the senior cadets the youth is assigned 
to that arm of the "citizen forces" to which he 
seems best fitted and in which he is most inter- 
ested, and is given infantry and cavalry drill, 
or staff corps training until he is 25 years of 
age. In his 26th year he is required to attend 
one muster parade only, and is then discharged 
from "active" service. He remains, however, 
subject to recall to the colors in time of war 

231 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

until he becomes 60 years of age. If he is 
declared proficient at the end of each year's 
training by a board of officers convened to pass 
judgment_, he has received twelve years of sys- 
tematic progressive military training. To win 
his discharge he must hold twelve annual cer- 
tificates of proficiency — a failure to pass the 
efficiency board means a repetition of that year 
of training. Promotions in the "citizens" forces 
are absolutely by merits the principle adopted 
being that "the best soldiers must lead, what- 
ever their civil avocation or birth." The pop- 
ulation of Australia of military age is about 
500,000. Exemptions and rejections average 
about 10 per cent for senior cadets and 33 1-3 
per cent for "citizen forces." The number 
under training when the system is in full sway 
will give 100,000 senior cadets and 120,000 
"citizen" soldiers. The available trained force 
of Australia will in the course of a few years 
approximate 300,000 men. 

Under the Defense Acts the following classes 
of exemptions exist: Persons physically, men- 
tally or morally unfit, members and officers of 
parliament, judges, police, prison employees, 
ministers of religion, lighthouse keepers, and 
physicians and nurses of public hospitals. The 
governor general may by proclamation vary or 

232 



APPENDIX 

extend these exemptions^ or he may exempt 
specified areas. Persons whose religion or 
belief prohibits them from bearing arms may 
be exempted from service in the combatant 
branches, but are liable for service in the sup- 
ply departments; and in every case the burden 
of proof rests upon the person claiming exemp- 
tion. The parent or guardian who fails to reg- 
ister a son or ward of service age, or the 
employer who interferes in any way with the 
miltary service of his employees, although he 
is not required to pay an employee for time 
absent on military duty, is liable to a heavy 
fine, and the boy or man who is absent from a 
formation may be fined or imprisoned. 

Should the Congress of the United States pass 
the proposed act to partially pay our organized 
militia, our system of defense will be practically 
that which was long ago abandoned by Austra- 
lia as "insecure." The effect of the present sys- 
tem is the constant maintenance of an adequate, 
trained force, which is under the direct control 
of the commonwealth in time of emergency. 

The government maintains *'area officers'* 
who look after registration and enrollment of 
the available recruits in their districts, and it 
supplies its forces with a simple, inexpensive 
uniform, but no pay. 

233 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

The young men of Australia give a small 
amount of their time to the service of their 
country, and in return receive the best kind of 
mental and physical training at the most recep- 
tive period of their lives. The expense to the 
government is small, the benefits derived by it 
and the individuals it accepts for training are 
many and important. 

The foregoing is a brief synopsis of the 
Australian system. It will be noted that to 
apply this system in this country, where prac- 
tically the entire matter of education is in the 
hands of forty-eight state governments instead 
of being in the hands of the general government, 
will require considerable modification for its 
practical application. As a matter of fact, 
practically the greater portion of the inherent 
difficulties attending the securing of efficiency in 
the militia will have to be overcome in the 
establishment of an efficient system of military 
training of any kind that is undertaken by our 
government. It is not believed that these diffi- 
culties will be insurmountable if the people of 
the country can be made to realize the inherent 
defects in our present system, and our actual 
inability to organize even a protective defensive 
force in this country. By this effective organi- 
zation is understood, of course, an organization 

234i 



APPENDIX 

that can be comi3leted in time to be of use 
under modern conditions. The following ideas 
are deemed to be essential to efficiency in any 
system of defense that may be adopted^ viz: 

1. Absolute and unqualified control by the 

central or responsible power. 

2. A nation-wide appreciation of the needs of 

the country in the form of national de- 
fense. 

3. The actual training and organization of a 

sufficient number of regular troops to 
act as an expeditionary force or as a 
retaining force until the citizen soldiers, 
whether cadets or militia, can be mob- 
ilized. 

4. That this citizen force, composed as it 

must be of militia and students, shall be 
not only trained, but organized into 
fixed defensive units, at all times, 
whether in peace or war, under the con- 
trol and subject to the direct call of 
the President as Commander in Chief 
of the Land and Naval Forces. 



235 



THE SWISS SYSTEM OF DEFENSE. 

"Nothing is more powerful, happier, 
or more praiseworthy than a State 
which possesses a very great number 
of trained soldiers. The independence 
of the Swiss Confederation rests not 
upon assurances or promises of em- 
perors or kings, it rests on a founda- 
tion of iron — ^that of our swords." 

The Swiss have always recognized the neces- 
sity of universal military service, and as early 
as 1291 it appears that all who did not serve — 
even widows and nuns — were subject to a 
special tax. From a military policy based 
upon hurried levies when war appeared to be 
imminent, and which were as broken reeds in 
action, the Swiss in 1874 passed laws which 
form the basis of the present system. The 
laws of 1874 have from time to time been 
modified in many minor respects. 

Today every Swiss schoolboy, from the time 
he enters school until he is graduated, is given 
a systematic course of athletic training to fit 
him for his later military service. This train- 

236 



APPENDIX 

ing, which is progressive and prescribed by the 
federal government, although directly super- 
vised by the canton authorities, is followed in 
every public and private school and institution 
for boys in Switzerland. The minimum time 
devoted to this instruction is two hours a week 
for the younger classes, and three hours a week 
for the older. 

Upon leaving school the young man may vol- 
unteer for a course in preliminary training. 
He receives from 50 to 80 hours a year in 
athletics, marching, care and use of the service 
rifle and target practice to include 300 metres. 
This course is purely voluntary, and is largely 
gone into by those who hope to win a commis- 
sion in the Swiss forces. 

In his 20th year, if examination finds him 
morally, mentally and physically fit, he must 
be enrolled as a member of the recruit class 
of the local battalion of the "Elite," or First 
Line. He is furnished with a simple service 
uniform and receives pay at the rate of 16 cents 
per day. In his recruit year the Swiss receives 
from 60 to 90 days of military training, depend- 
ing upon the branch of the army he enters, by 
instructor-officers of the permanent establish- 
ment. Every year after the recruit year, he, 
as a soldier of the First Line, returns to the 

237 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

colors for at least 11 days of "review" instruc- 
tion. He retains his uniform, rifle and equip- 
ment in his immediate possession, and since all 
other impedimenta is kept at the headquarters 
of the local organization, the details of mobili- 
zation are greatly simplified. 

Upon reaching the age of 32 the First Line 
soldier is transferred to the Landwehr, or Sec- 
ond Line, and at 48 to the Landsturm or Third 
Line. The Landwehr is a feeder for the Elite, 
and is itself fed from the Landsturm. 

Officers are made through merit, are given 
special courses, and retained in "active" serv- 
ice for longer periods. The law permits no 
soldier to decline promotion with its added 
responsibilities in either the commissioned or 
noncommissioned grades. 

The government encourages the formation of 
rifle clubs and competitions among them in every 
possible way, and officers of the Second and 
Third Lines make it a practice to assemble often 
for tactical discussions and war games. 

Every soldier is insured against sickness, 
accident or death by the government while 
under instruction or while engaged in any mili- 
tary duty. 

Certain classes are exempted from active serv- 
ice in time of peace, as members of the Federal 

238 



APPENDIX 

Council, ministers of religion (except the nec- 
essary chaplains), prison wardens, frontier 
guards, police, personnel of public hospitals, 
and railroad and steamship employees, but are 
liable for service in time of war in their pro- 
fessional capacities. The morally and physi- 
cally unfit are not permitted to serve, but are 
required to pay a special income tax in lieu of 
service. 

In one sense it may be said that Switzerland 
has no standing army, as its permanent estab- 
lishment consists of a general staif and a small 
number of territorial recruiting supply and 
instructor officers; yet with a population of 
4,000,000 in the year 1912 it had a fully organ- 
ized and equipped, well trained and disciplined 
force of 490,430 men instantly available. The 
military expenses of the Government for that 
year were $8,229,941, or $16.77 per man. 

While the obligatory military service of the 
boys is extremely short in contrast with that of 
the great European powers, it must be remem- 
bered that the boy has been receiving military 
instructions for a number of years, that he has 
been acquiring a good body and familiarity 
with the rifle and a high moral sense of his 
obligation to his country, so that when he comes 
to the colors he has already absorbed a large 

239 



OUR MILITARY HISTORY 

proportion of the training which the recruit has 
to receive after joining the colors in other 
armies. 

Physical training forms an essential part of 
this preliminary work^ and the training is uni- 
form throughout the country, as it could be here, 
it all being based upon the calisthenic meth- 
ods prescribed by the army regulations. Prac- 
tically all of this instruction is given by the 
male teachers of the public schools. Rifle shoot- 
ing is encouraged throughout the country, as it 
should be here. 



240 

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